CONFESSIONS OF
CON CREGAN
The Irish Gil Blas
By Charles Lever
With Illustrations by Phiz.
Boston: Little, Brown, And Company. 1913
CONTENTS
[ PREFACE. ]
[ CHAPTER I. ] A PEEP AT MY FATHER
[ CHAPTER II. ] ANOTHER PEEP AT MY FATHER
[ CHAPTER III. ] A FIRST STEP ON LIFE'S LADDER
[ CHAPTER IV. ] HOW I ENTERED COLLEGE, AND HOW I LEFT IT
[ CHAPTER V. ] A PEEP AT “HIGH AND LOW COMPANY”
[ CHAPTER VI. ] VIEWS OF LIFE
[ CHAPTER VII. ] A BOLD STROKE FOR AN OPENING IN THE WORLD
[ CHAPTER VIII. ] A QUIET CHOP AT 'KILLEEN'S'
[ CHAPTER IX. ] SIR DUDLEY BROUGHTON
[ CHAPTER X. ] THE VOYAGE OUT
[ CHAPTER XI. ] MEANS AND MEDITATIONS
[ CHAPTER XII. ] A GLIMPSE OF ANOTHER OPENING IN LIFE
[ CHAPTER XIII. ] QUEBEC
[ CHAPTER XIV. ] FELL IN AND OUT WITH THE WIDOW DAVIS
[ CHAPTER XV. ] AN EMIGRANTS FIRST STEP ON SHORE
[ CHAPTER XVI. ] A NIGHT IN THE LOWER TOWN
[ CHAPTER XVII. ] MY LUCUBRATIONS ON THE ST. LAWRENCE
[ CHAPTER XVIII. ] THE ORDINARY OF ALL NATIONS
[ CHAPTER XIX. ] ON BOARD THE 'CHRISTOBAL'
[ CHAPTER XX. ] THE LOG-HUT AT BRAZOS
[ CHAPTER XXI. ] A NIGHT IN THE FOREST OF TEXAS
[ CHAPTER XXII. ] THE LAZARETTO OF BEXAR
[ CHAPTER XXIII. ] THE PLACER
[ CHAPTER XXIV. ] THE FATE OF A GAMBUSINO
[ CHAPTER XXV. ] LA SEÑHORA
[ CHAPTER XXVI. ] THE DISCOVERY
[ CHAPTER XXVII. ] GUAJUAQUALLA
[ CHAPTER XXVIII. ] THE VOYAGE OF THE 'ACADIE'
[ CHAPTER XXIX. ] THE CARCEL MORENA AT MALAGA
[ CHAPTER XXX. ] CONSOLATIONS OF DIPLOMACY
[ CHAPTER XXXI. ] A NEW WALK IN PROGRESSIVE LIFE
[ CHAPTER XXXII. ] MOI ET MON PRINCE
[ CHAPTER XXXIII. ] A SOIRÉE IN THE GREAT WORLD
[ CHAPTER XXXIV. ] CONCLUSION
PREFACE.
An eminent apothecary of my acquaintance once told me that at each increase to his family, he added ten per cent to the price of his drugs, and as his quiver was full of daughters, Blackdraught, when I knew him, was a more costly cordial than Curaçoa.
To apply this to my own case, I may mention that I had a daughter born to me about the time this story dates from, and not having at my command the same resource as my friend the chemist, I adopted the alternative of writing another story, to be published contemporaneously with that now appearing,—“The Daltons;” and not to incur the reproach so natural in criticism—of over-writing myself—I took care that the work should come out without a name.
I am not sure that I made any attempt to disguise my style; I was conscious of scores of blemishes—I decline to call them mannerisms—that would betray me: but I believe I trusted most of all to the fact that I was making my monthly appearance to the world in another story, and with another publisher, and I had my hope that my small duplicity would thus escape undetected.
I was aware that there was a certain amount of peril in running an opposition coach on the line I had made in some degree my own; not to say that it might be questionable policy to glut the public with a kind of writing more remarkable for peculiarity than perfection.
I remember that excellent Irishman Bianconi, not the less Irish that he was born at Lucca,—which was simply a “bull,”—once telling me that to popularize a road on which few people were then travelling, and on which his daily two-horse car was accustomed to go its journey, with two or at most three passengers, the idea occurred to him that he would start an opposition conveyance, of course in perfect secrecy, and with every outward show of its being a genuine rival. He effected his object with such success that his own agents were completely taken in, and never wearied of reporting, for his gratification, all the shortcomings and disasters of the rival company.
At length, and when the struggle between the competitors was at its height, one of his drivers rushed frantically into his office one day, crying out, “Give a crown-piece to drink your honor's health for what I done to-day.”
“What was it, Larry?”
“I killed the yallow mare of the opposition car; I passed her on the long hill, when she was blown, and I bruk her heart before she reached the top.”
“After this I gave up the opposition,” said my friend; “'mocking was catching,' as the old proverb says; and I thought that one might carry a joke a little too far.”
I had this experience before me, and I will not say it did not impress me. My puzzle was, however, in this wise: I imagined I did not care on which horse I stood to win; in other words, I persuaded myself that it was a matter of perfect indifference to me which book took best with the public, and whether the reader thought better of “The Daltons” or “Con Cregan,” that it could in no way concern me.
That I totally misunderstood myself, or misconceived the case before me, I am now quite ready to own. For one notice of “The Daltons” by the Press, there were at least three or four of “Con Cregan,” and while the former was dismissed with a few polite and measured phrases, the latter was largely praised and freely quoted. Nor was this all. The critics discovered in “Con Cregan” a freshness and a vigor which were so sadly deficient in “The Daltons.” It was, they averred, the work of a less practised writer, but of one whose humor was more subtle, and whose portraits, roughly sketched as they were, indicated a far higher power than the well-known author of “Harry Lorrequer.”
The unknown—for there was no attempt to guess him—was pronounced not to be an imitator of Mr. Lever, though there were certain small points of resemblance; for he was clearly original in his conception of character, in his conduct of his story, and in his dialogues, and there were traits of knowledge of life in scenes and under conditions to which Mr. Lever could lay no claim. One critic, who had found out more features of resemblance between the two writers than his colleagues, uttered a friendly caution to Mr. Lever to look to his laurels, for there was a rival in the field possessing many of the characteristics by which he first won public favor, but a racy drollery in description and a quaintness in his humor all his own. It was the amusement of one of my children at the time to collect these sage comments and torment me with their judgments, and I remember a droll little note-book, in which they were pasted, and read aloud from time to time with no small amusement and laughter.
One or two of these I have even now before me:—
“Our new novelist has great stuff in him.”—Bath Gazette.
“'Con Cregan'—author unknown—begins promisingly; his first number is a decided hit.”—Cambridge Chronicle.
“The writer of 'Con Cregan' is a new hand, but we predict he will be a success”.”—Cambridge Advertiser.
“A new tale, in a style with which Lever and his followers have made us acquainted.”—Hampshire Advertiser.
“This tale is from the pen of an able Irish writer. The dialogue is very smartly written, so much so—and we cannot pay the writer a more genuine compliment—that it bespeaks the author to be an Irishman, &c.”—Somerset Gazette.
“'Con Cregan '—by an unnamed author—is a new candidate for popularity,” &c.—Northern Whig, Belfast.
“The writer must be an Irishman.”—Nottingham Gazette.
“A new bark, launched by an unknown builder.”—Cheltenham Chronicle.
“That the author's name is not disclosed will not affect the popularity of this work,—one of the most attractive,” &c.—Oxford Journal.
“This is a new tale by the pen of some able Irish writer, the first part of which is only published.”—Ten Town Messenger.
“Another new candidate for popular fame, and 'Harry Lorrequer' had better look to his laurels. There is a poacher in the manor in the person of the writer of 'Con Cregan.'”—Yorkshireman.
“'Con Cregan' promises to become as great a fact as 'Harry Lorrequer.' “—People's Journal.
“The author of 'Con Cregan,' whoever he be, is no ordinary man.”
“Another daring author has entered the lists, and with every promise of success.”—Exeter Post.
It may sound very absurd to confess it, but I was excessively provoked at the superior success of the unacknowledged book, and felt the rivalry to the full as painfully as though I had never written a line of it. Was it that I thought well of one story and very meanly of the other, and in consequence was angry at the want of concurrence of my critics? I suspect not. I rather imagine I felt hurt at discovering how little hold I had, in my acknowledged name, on a public with whom I fancied myself on such good terms; and it pained me to see with what little difficulty a new and a nameless man could push for the place I had believed to be my own.
“The Daltons” I always wrote, after my habit, in the morning; I never turned to “Con Cregan” until nigh midnight; and I can still remember the widely different feelings with which I addressed myself to the task I liked, and to a story which, in the absurd fashion I have mentioned, was associated with wounded self-love.
It is scarcely necessary for me to say that there was no plan whatever in this book. My notion was, that “Con Cregan,” once created, would not fail to find adventures. The vicissitudes of daily poverty would beget shifts and contrivances; with these successes would come ambition and daring. Meanwhile a growing knowledge of life would develop his character, and I should soon see whether he would win the silver spoon or spoil the horn. I ask pardon in the most humble manner for presuming for a moment to associate my hero with the great original of Le Sage.
But I used the word “Irish” adjectively, and with the same amount of qualification that one employs to a diamond, and indeed, as I have read it in a London paper, to a “Lord.”
An American officer, of whom I saw much at the time, was my guide to the interior of Mexico; he had been originally in the Santa Fé expedition, was a man of most adventurous disposition, and a love of stirring incident and peril, that even broken-down health and a failing constitution could not subdue.
It was often very difficult for me to tear myself away from his Texan and Mexican experiences, his wild scenes of prairie life, or his sojourn amongst Indian tribes, and keep to the more commonplace events of my own story; nor could all my entreaties confine him to those descriptions of places and scenes which I needed for my own characters.
The saunter after tea-time, with this companion, generally along that little river that tumbles through the valley of the Bagno di Lucca, was the usual preparation for my night's work; and I came to it as intensely possessed by Mexico—dress, manner, and landscape—as though I had been drawing on the recollection of a former journey.
So completely separated in my mind were the two tales by the different parts of the day in which I wrote them, that no character of “The Daltons” ever crossed my mind after nightfall, nor was there a trace of “Con Cregan” in my head at my breakfast next morning.
None of the characters of this story have been taken from life. The one bit of reality in the whole is in the sketch of “Anticosti,” where I myself suffered once a very small shipwreck, but of which I retain a very vivid recollection to this hour.
I have already owned that I bore a grudge to the story as I wrote it; nor have I outlived the memory of the chagrin it cost me, though it is many a year since I acknowledged that “Con Cregan” was by the author of “Harry Lorrequer.”
CHAPTER I. A PEEP AT MY FATHER
When we shall have become better acquainted, my worthy reader, there will be little necessity for my insisting upon a fact which at this early stage of our intimacy, I deem it requisite to mention; namely, that my native modesty and bashfulness are only second to my veracity, and that while the latter quality in a manner compels me to lay an occasional stress upon my own goodness of heart, generosity, candor, and so forth, I have, notwithstanding, never introduced the subject without a pang,—such a pang as only a sensitive and diffident nature can suffer or comprehend. There now, not another word of preface or apology!
I was born in a little cabin on the borders of Meath and King's County. It stood on a small triangular bit of ground, beside a cross-road; and although the place was surveyed every ten years or so, they were never able to say to which county we belonged; there being just the same number of arguments for one side as for the other,—a circumstance, many believed, that decided my father in his original choice of the residence; for while, under the “disputed boundary question,” he paid no rates or county cess, he always made a point of voting at both county elections! This may seem to indicate that my parent was of a naturally acute habit; and indeed the way he became possessed of the bit of ground will confirm that impression.
There was nobody of the rank of gentry in the parish, nor even “squireen;” the richest being a farmer, a snug old fellow, one Henry M'Cabe, that had two sons, who were always fighting between themselves which was to have the old man's money,—Peter, the elder, doing everything to injure Mat, and Mat never backward in paying off the obligation. At last Mat, tired out in the struggle, resolved he would bear no more. He took leave of his father one night, and next day set off for Dublin, and 'listed in the “Buffs.” Three weeks after, he sailed for India; and the old man, overwhelmed by grief, took to his bed, and never arose from it after.
Not that his death was any way sudden, for he lingered on for months long,—Peter always teasing him to make his will, and be revenged on “the dirty spalpeen” that disgraced the family, but old Harry as stoutly resisting, and declaring that whatever he owned should be fairly divided between them.
These disputes between them were well known in the neighborhood. Few of the country people passing the house at night but had overheard the old man's weak, reedy voice, and Peter's deep, hoarse one, in altercation. When at last—it was on a Sunday night—all was still and quiet in the house,—not a word, not a footstep, could be heard, no more than if it were uninhabited,—the neighbors looked knowingly at each other, and wondered if the old man was worse—if he was dead!
It was a little after midnight that a knock came to the door of our cabin. I heard it first, for I used to sleep in a little snug basket near the fire; but I did n't speak, for I was frightened. It was repeated still louder, and then came a cry, “Con Cregan! Con, I say, open the door! I want you.” I knew the voice well; it was Peter M'Cabe's; but I pretended to be fast asleep, and snored loudly. At last my father unbolted the door, and I heard him say, “Oh, Mr. Peter, what's the matter? Is the ould man worse?”
“Faix that's what he is, for he 's dead!”
“Glory be his bed! when did it happen?”
“About an hour ago,” said Peter, in a voice that even I from my corner could perceive was greatly agitated. “He died like an ould haythen, Con, and never made a will!”
“That's bad,” says my father; for he was always a polite man, and said whatever was pleasing to the company.
“It is bad,” said Peter; “but it would be worse if we could n't help it. Listen to me now, Corny, I want ye to help me in this business; and here's five guineas in goold, if ye do what I bid ye. You know that ye were always reckoned the image of my father, and before he took ill ye were mistaken for each other every day of the week.”
“Anan!” said my father; for he was getting frightened at the notion, without well knowing why.
“Well, what I want is, for ye to come over to the house, and get into the bed.”
“Not beside the corpse?” said my father, trembling.
“By no means, but by yourself; and you 're to pretend to be my father, and that ye want to make yer will before ye die; and then I 'll send for the neighbors, and Billy Scanlan the schoolmaster, and ye 'll tell him what to write, laving all the farm and everything to me,—ye understand. And as the neighbors will see ye, and hear yer voice, it will never be believed but that it was himself that did it.”
“The room must be very dark,” says my father.
“To be sure it will, but have no fear! Nobody will dare to come nigh the bed; and ye 'll only have to make a cross with yer pen under the name.”
“And the priest?” said my father.
“My father quarrelled with him last week about the Easter dues, and Father Tom said he 'd not give him the 'rites,' and that's lucky now! Come along now, quick, for we 've no time to lose; it must be all finished before the day breaks.”
My father did not lose much time at his toilet, for he just wrapped his big coat 'round him, and slipping on his brogues, left the house. I sat up in the basket and listened till they were gone some minutes; and then, in a costume as light as my parent's, set out after them, to watch the course of the adventure. I thought to take a short cut, and be before them; but by bad luck I fell into a bog-hole, and only escaped being drowned by a chance. As it was, when I reached the house, the performance had already begun.
I think I see the whole scene this instant before my eyes, as I sat on a little window with one pane, and that a broken one, and surveyed the proceeding. It was a large room, at one end of which was a bed, and beside it a table, with physic-bottles, and spoons, and teacups; a little farther off was another table, at which sat Billy Scanlan, with all manner of writing materials before him. The country people sat two, sometimes three, deep round the walls, all intently eager and anxious for the coming event. Peter himself went from place to place, trying to smother his grief, and occasionally helping the company to whiskey, which was supplied with more than accustomed liberality.
All my consciousness of the deceit and trickery could not deprive the scene of a certain solemnity. The misty distance of the half-lighted room; the highly wrought expression of the country people's faces, never more intensely excited than at some moment of this kind; the low, deep-drawn breathings, unbroken save by a sigh or a sob,—the tribute of affectionate sorrow to some lost friend, whose memory was thus forcibly brought back; these, I repeat it, were all so real that, as I looked, a thrilling sense of awe stole over me, and I actually shook with fear.
A low, faint cough, from the dark corner where the bed stood, seemed to cause even a deeper stillness; and then, in a silence where the buzzing of a fly would have been heard, my father said, “Where's Billy Scanlan? I want to make my will!”
“He's here, father!” said Peter, taking Billy by the hand and leading him to the bedside.
“Write what I bid ye, Billy, and be quick; for I hav'n't a long time afore me here. I die a good Catholic, though Father O'Rafferty won't give me the 'rites '!”
A general chorus of muttered “Oh! musha, musha!” was now heard through the room; but whether in grief over the sad fate of the dying man, or the unflinching severity of the priest, is hard to say.
“I die in peace with all my neighbors and all mankind!”
Another chorus of the company seemed to approve these charitable expressions.
“I bequeath unto my son Peter,—and never was there a better son, or a decenter boy!—have you that down? I bequeath unto my son Peter the whole of my two farms of Killimundoonery and Knocksheboora, with the fallow meadows behind Lynch's house; the forge, and the right of turf on the Dooran bog. I give him, and much good may it do him, Lanty Cassara's acre, and the Luary field, with the limekiln; and that reminds me that my mouth is just as dry; let me taste what ye have in the jug.” Here the dying man took a very hearty pull, and seemed considerably refreshed by it. “Where was I, Billy Scanlan?” says he; “oh, I remember, at the limekiln; I leave him—that's Peter, I mean—the two potato-gardens at Noonan's Well; and it is the elegant fine crops grows there.”
“An't you gettin' wake, father, darlin'?” says Peter, who began to be afraid of my father's loquaciousness; for, to say the truth, the punch got into his head, and he was greatly disposed to talk.
“I am, Peter, my son,” says he; “I am getting wake; just touch my lips again with the jug. Ah, Peter, Peter, you watered the drink!”
“No, indeed, father; but it's the taste is leavin' you,” says Peter; and again a low chorus of compassionate pity murmured through the cabin.
“Well, I'm nearly done now,” says my father; “there's only one little plot of ground remaining; and I put it on you, Peter,—as ye wish to live a good man, and die with the same easy heart I do now,—that ye mind my last words to ye here. Are ye listening? Are the neighbors listening? Is Billy Scanlan listening?”
“Yes, sir. Yes, father. We're all minding,” chorused the audience.
“Well, then, it's my last will and testament, and may—Give me over the jug.” Here he took a long drink. “And may that blessed liquor be poison to me if I 'm not as eager about this as every other part of my will. I say, then, I bequeath the little plot at the cross-roads to poor Con Cre-gan; for he has a heavy charge, and is as honest and as hard-working a man as ever I knew. Be a friend to him, Peter, dear; never let him want while ye have it yourself; think of me on my death-bed whenever he asks ye for any trifle. Is it down, Billy Scanlan? the two acres at the cross to Con Cregan and his heirs in secla seclorum. Ah, blessed be the saints! but I feel my heart lighter after that,” says he; “a good work makes an easy conscience. And now I 'll drink all the company's good health, and many happy returns—”
What he was going to add, there 's no saying; but Peter, who was now terribly frightened at the lively tone the sick man was assuming, hurried all the people away into another room, to let his father die in peace.
When they were all gone Peter slipped back to my father, who was putting on his brogues in a corner. “Con,” says he, “ye did it all well; but sure that was a joke about the two acres at the cross.”
“Of course it was, Peter,” says he; “sure it was all a joke, for the matter of that. Won't I make the neighbors laugh hearty to-morrow when I tell them all about it!”
“You wouldn't be mean enough to betray me?” says Peter, trembling with fright.
“Sure ye would n't be mean enough to go against yer father's dying words,” says my father,—“the last sentence ever he spoke? And here he gave a low, wicked laugh, that made myself shake with fear.
“Very well, Con!” says Peter, holding out his hand; “a bargain's a bargain; yer a deep fellow, that's all!” And so it ended; and my father slipped quietly home over the bog, mighty well satisfied with the legacy he left himself.
And thus we became the owners of the little spot known to this day as Con's Acre; of which, more hereafter.
CHAPTER II. ANOTHER PEEP AT MY FATHER
My father's prosperity had the usual effect it has on similar cases.
It lifted him into a different sphere of companionship and suggested new habits of life. No longer necessitated to labor daily for his bread, by a very slight exercise of industry he could cultivate his “potato-garden;” and every one who knows anything of Ireland well knows that the potato and its corollary, the pig, supply every want of an Irish cottier household.
Being thus at liberty to dispose of himself and his time, my parent was enabled to practise a long-desired and much-coveted mode of life; which was to frequent “sheebeens” and alehouses, and all similar places of resort,—not, indeed, for the gratification of any passion for drink, for my father only indulged when he was “treated,” and never could bring himself to spend a farthing in liquor himself, but his great fondness for these places took its origin in his passion for talk. Never, indeed, lived there a man—from Lord Brougham himself downwards—who had a greater taste for gossip and loquaciousness than my father. It mattered little what the subject, he was always ready; and whether it were a crim. con. in the newspapers, a seizure for rent, a marriage in high life, or a pig in the pound,—there he was, explaining away all difficult terms of law and jurisprudence; and many a difficulty that Tom Cafferty, the postmaster, had attempted in vain to solve was, by a kind of “writ of error,” removed to my father's court for explanation and decision.
That he soon became a kind of authority in the neighboring town of Kilbeggan need not excite any surprise. It is men of precisely his kind, and with talents of an order very similar to his, that wield influence in the great cities of the earth. It is your talking, pushing, forward men, seeming always confident in what they say, never acknowledging an error nor confessing a defeat, who take the lead in life. With average ability, and ten times the average assurance, they reach the goal that bashful merit never even so much as gets within sight of.
His chief resort, however, was the Court of Quarter Sessions, where he sat from the first opening case to the last judgment, watching with an intense interest all the vacillating changes of the law's uncertainty, which unquestionably were not in any way diminished by the singular individual who presided in that seat of justice. Simon Ball, or, as he was better known at the bar, Snow Ball,—an epithet he owed to his white head and eyebrows,—had qualified himself for the Bench by improving upon the proverbial attribute of justice. He was not only blind but deaf. For something like forty-five years he had walked the hall of the Four Courts with an empty bag, and a head scarcely more encumbered, when one morning—no one could guess why—the “Gazette” announced that the Lord Lieutenant had appointed him to the vacant chairmanship of Westmeath,—a promotion which had the effect of confounding all political animosity by its perfect unaccountableness.
It is a law of Nature that nothing ever goes to loss. Bad wine will make very tolerable vinegar; spoiled hay is converted into good manure; and so, a very middling lawyer often drops down into a very respectable judge. Had the gods but acknowledged Mr. Ball's abilities some years earlier, doubtless he had been an exception to the theory.
They waited, however, so long that both sight and hearing were in abeyance when the promotion came. It seemed to rally him, however, this act of recognition, although late. It was a kind of corroboration of the self-estimate of a long life, and he prepared to show the world that he was very different from what they took him for. No men have the bump of self-esteem like lawyers; they live, and grow old, and die, always fancying that Holts, and Hales, and Mansfields are hid within the unostentatious exterior of their dusty garments; and that the wit that dazzles, and the pathos that thrills, are all rusting inside, just for want of a little of that cheering encouragement by which their contemporaries are clad in silk and walk in high places. Snow Ball was determined to show the world its error, and with a smart frock and green spectacles he took the field like a “fine old Irish barrister,” with many a dry joke or sly sarcasm curled up in the wrinkles beside his mouth. However cheap a man may be held by his fellows in the “Hall,” he is always sure of a compensation in the provinces. There the country gentlemen looked upon their chairman as a Blackstone,—not alone a storehouse of law, but a great appeal upon questions of general knowledge and information. I should scarcely have ventured upon what some of my readers may regard as a mere digression, if it were not that the gentleman and the peculiar nature of his infirmities had led to an intimate relation with my father. My parent's fondness for law, and all appertaining to it, had attached him to the little inn where Mr. Ball usually put up at each season of his visit; and gradually, by tendering little services, as fetching an umbrella when it rained, hastening for a book of reference if called for, searching out an important witness, and probably by a most frequent and respectful use of the title “my lord,” instead of the humble “your worship,” he succeeded in so ingratiating himself with the judge that, without exactly occupying any precise station, or having any regular employment, he became in some sort a recognized appendage, a kind of “unpaid attaché to the court” of Kilbeggan.
My father was one of those persons who usually ask only a “lift” from Fortune, and do not require to be continually aided by her. From being the humble attendant on the judge, he soon succeeded to being his privy councillor; supplying a hundred little secret details of the neighborhood and its local failings, which usually gave Mr. Ball's decisions on the bench an air approaching inspiration, so full were they of a knowledge of individual life. As confidence ripened, my father was employed in reading out to the judge of an evening the various depositions of witnesses, the informations laid, and the affidavits sworn,—opportunities from which he did not neglect to derive the full advantage; for while he usually accompanied the written document with a running commentary of his own to Mr. Ball, he also contrived to let the suitor feel how great was his knowledge of the case, and what a powerful influence behind the scenes he wielded over the fortunes of the cause; insomuch that it became soon well known that he who had Con Cregan on his side was better off than with the whole Bench of country magistrates disposed to favor him.
My father's prudence did not desert him in these trying circumstances. Without any historical knowledge of the matter, he knew by a species of instinct that pride was the wreck of most men, and that, to wield real, substantial power, it is often necessary to assume a garb of apparent inefficiency and incapacity. To this end, the greater the influence he possessed, the humbler did he affect to be; disclaiming everything like power, he got credit for possessing a far greater share than he ever really enjoyed.
That the stream of justice did not run perfectly pure and clear, however, may not be a matter of surprise; for how many rocks, and shoals, and quicksands, are there in the channel! and certainly my father was a dangerous hand at the wheel. Litigation, it must be owned, lost much of its vacillation. The usual question about any case was, “What does Con say? Did Con Cregan tell ye ye 'll win?” That was decisive; none sceptical enough to ask for more!
At the feet of this Gamaliel I was brought up; nothing the more tenderly that a stepmother presided over the “home department.” As I was a stout boy, of some thirteen or fourteen at this period of my father's life, and could read and write tolerably well, I was constantly employed in making copies of various papers used at the Sessions. Were I psychologically inclined, I might pause here to inquire how far these peculiar studies had their influence in biassing the whole tenor of my very eventful life; what latent stores of artifice did I lay up from all these curious subtleties; how did I habituate my mind to weigh and balance probabilities, as evidence inclined to this side or that; above all, how gratified was I with the discovery that there existed a legal right and wrong, perfectly distinct from the moral ones,—a fact which served at once to open the path of life far wider and more amply before me.
I must, however, leave this investigation to the reader's acuteness, if he think it worth following out; nor would I now allude to it save as it affords me the opportunity, once for all, of explaining modes of thinking and acting which might seem, without some such clue, as unfitting and unseemly in one reared and brought up as I was.
Whether the new dignity of his station had disposed him to it or not, I cannot say; but my father became far more stern in his manner and exacting in his requirements as he rose in life. The practice of the law seemed to impart some feature of its own peremptory character to himself, as he issued his orders in our humble household with all the impressive solemnity of a writ,—indeed, aiding the effect by phrases taken from the awful vocabulary of justice.
If my stepmother objected to anything the answer was, usually, she might “traverse in prox” at the next Sessions; while to myself every order was in the style of a “mandamus.” Not satisfied with the mere terrors of the Bench, he became so enamoured of the pursuit as to borrow some features of prison discipline for the conduct of our household; thus, for the slightest infractions of his severe code I was “put” upon No. 3 Penitentiary diet,—only reading potatoes vice bread.
There would seem to be something uncongenial to obedience in any form in the life of an Irish peasant; something doubtless in the smell of the turf. He seems to imbibe a taste for freedom by the very architecture of his dwelling, and the easy, unbuttoned liberty of his corduroys. Young as I was, I suppose the Celt was strong within me; and the “Times” says, that will account for all delinquencies. I felt this powerfully; not the less, indeed, that my father almost invariably visited me with the penalty of the case then before the Court; so that while copying out at night the details of the prosecution, I had time to meditate over the coming sentence. It was, perhaps, fortunate for me that capital cases do not come under the jurisdiction of a “sitting barrister;” otherwise I verily believe I might have suffered the last penalty of the law from my parent's infatuation.
My sense of “equity” at last revolted. I perceived, that no matter who “sued,” I was always “cast;” and I at length resolved on resistance. I remember well the night this resolution was formed; it was a cold and cheerless one of January. My father had given me a great mass of papers to copy, and a long article for the newspapers to write out, which the “Judge” was to embody in his address to the Bench. I never put pen to either, but sat with my head between my hands for twelve mortal hours, revolving every possible wickedness, and wondering whether in my ingenuity I could not invent some offences that no indictment could comprise. Day broke, and found me still unoccupied. I was just meditating whether I should avow my rebellion openly, and “plead” in mitigation, when my father came in.
My reader must excuse me if I do not dwell on what followed. It is enough to say that the nature of my injuries are unknown to the criminal statute, and that although my wounds and bruises are familiar to the prize-ring, they are ignored by all jurisprudence out of the slave states. Even my stepmother confessed that I was not fit to “pick out of the gutter;” and she proved her words by leaving me where I lay.
Revenge must be a very “human” passion; my taste for it came quite naturally. I had never read “Othello” nor “Zanga;” but I conceived a very clear and precise notion that I had a debt to pay, and pay it I would. Had the obligation been of a pecuniary character, and some “bankrupt commission” been in jurisdiction over it, I had doubtless been called upon to discharge it in a series of instalments proportional to my means of life; being a moral debt, however, I enjoyed the privilege of paying it at once, and in full; which I did thus: I had often remarked that my father arose at night and left the cabin, crossing a little garden behind the house to a little shed, where our pig and an ass lived in harmony together; and here, by dint of patient observation, I discovered that his occupation lay in the thatch of the aforesaid shed, in which he seemed to conceal some object of value.
Thither I now repaired, some secret prompting suggesting that it might afford me the wished-for means of vengeance. My disappointment was indeed great that no compact roll of bank-notes, no thick woollen stocking close packed with guineas, or even crown-pieces, met my hand. A heavy bundle of papers and parchment was all I could find; and these bore such an unhappy family resemblance to the cause of all my misfortunes that I was ready to tear them to pieces in very spite. A mere second's reflection suggested a better course. There was a certain attorney in Kilbeggan, one Morissy, my father's bitterest enemy; indeed, my parent's influence in the Session court had almost ruined and left him without a client. The man of law and precedents in vain struggled against decisions which a secret and irresponsible adviser contrived beforehand, and Morissy's knowledge and experience were soon discovered to be valueless. It was a game in which skill went for nothing.
This gentleman's character at once pointed him out as the fitting agent of vengeance on my father, and by an hour after daybreak did I present myself before him in all the consciousness of my injured state.
Mr. Morissy's reception of me was not over gracious.
“Well, ye spawn of the devil,” said he, as he turned about from a small fragment of looking-glass, before which he was shaving, “what brings ye here? Bad luck to ye; the sight of ye's made me cut myself.”
“I'm come, sir, for a bit of advice, sir,” said I, putting my hand to my hat in salutation.
“Assault and battery!” said he, with a grin on the side of his mouth where the soap had been shaved away.
“Yes, sir; an aggravated case,” said I, using the phrase of the Sessions.
“Why don't ye apply to yer father? He's Crown lawyer and Attorney-General; faith, he 's more besides,—he 's judge and jury too.”
“And more than that in the present suit, sir,” says I, following up his illustration; “he's the defendant here.”
“What! is that his doing?”
“Yes, sir; his own hand and mark,” said I, laughing.
“That's an ugly cut, and mighty near the eye! But sure, after all, you 're his child.”
“Very true, sir; it's only paternal correction; but I have something else!”
“What's that, Con my boy?” said he; for we were now grown very familiar.
“It is this, sir,” said I; “this roll of papers that I found hid in the thatch,—a safe place my father used to make his strong-box.”
“Let us see!” said Morissy, sitting down and opening the package. Many were old summonses discharged, notices to quit withdrawn, and so on; but at last he came to two papers pinned together, at sight of which he almost jumped from his chair. “Con,” says he, “describe the place you found them in.”
I went over all the discovery again.
“Did ye yourself see your father put in papers there?”
“I did, sir.”
“On more than one occasion?”
“At least a dozen times, sir.”
“Did ye ever remark any one else putting papers there?”
“Never, sir! none of the neighbors ever come through the garden.”
“And it was always at night, and in secret, he used to repair there?”
“Always at night”
“That'll do, Con; that 'll do, my son. You'll soon turn the tables on the old boy. You may go down to the kitchen and get your breakfast; be sure, however, that you don't leave the house to-day. Your father mustn't know where ye are till we're ready for him.”
“Is it a strong case, sir?” said I.
“A very strong case—never a flaw in it.”
“Is it more than a larceny, sir?” said I.
“It is better than that.”
“I'd rather it didn't go too far,” said I, for I was beginning to feel afraid of what I had done.
“Leave that to me, Con,” said Mr. Morissy, “and go down to yer breakfast.”
I did as I was bid, and never stirred out of the house the whole day, nor for eight days after; when one morning Morissy bid me clean myself, and brush my hair, to come with him to the Court-house.
I guessed at once what was going to happen; and now, as my head was healed, and all my bruises cured, I'd very gladly have forgiven all the affair, and gone home again with my father; but it was too late. As Mr. Morissy said, with a grin, “The law is an elegant contrivance; a child's finger can set it in motion, but a steam engine could not hold it back afterwards!”
The Court was very full that morning; there were five magistrates on the bench, and Mr. Ball in the middle of them. There were a great many farmers, too, for it was market-day; and numbers of the townspeople, who all knew my father, and were not sorry to see him “up.” Cregan versus Cregan stood third on the list of cases; and very little interest attached to the two that preceded it. At last it was called; and there I stood before the Bench, with five hundred pair of eyes all bent upon me; and two of them actually looking through my very brain,—for they were my father's, as he stood at the opposite side of the table below the Bench.
The case was called an assault, and very soon terminated; for, by my own admission, it was clear that I deserved punishment; though probably not so severely as it had been inflicted. The judge delivered a very impressive lesson to my father and myself, about our respective duties, and dismissed the case with a reproof, the greater share of which fell to me. “You may go now, sir,” said he, winding up a line peroration; “fear God and honor the king; respect your parents, and make your capitals smaller.”
“Before your worship dismisses the witness,” said Morissy, “I wish to put a few questions to him.”
“The case is disposed of: call the next,” said the judge, angrily.
“I have a most important fact to disclose to your worship,—one which is of the highest importance to the due administration of justice,—one which, if suffered to lie in obscurity, will be a disgrace to the law, and a reproach to the learned Bench.”
“Call the next case, crier,” said the judge. “Sit down, Mr. Morissy.”
“Your worshipw may commit me; but I will be heard—”
“Tipstaff! take that man into—” “When you hear of a mandamus from the King's Bench—when you know that a case of compounding a felony—”
“Come away, Mr. Morissy; come quiet, sir!” said the police-sergeant.
“What were ye saying of a mandamus?” said the judge, getting frightened at the dreaded word.
“I was saying this, sir,” said Morissy, turning fiercely round; “that I am possessed of information which you refused to hear, and which will make the voice of the Chief Justice heard in this court, which now denies its ear to truth.”
“Conduct yourself more becomingly, sir,” said one of the county magistrates, “and open your case.”
Morissy, who was far more submissive to the gentry than to the chairman, at once replied in his blandest tone:—
“Your worship, it is now more than a month since I appeared before you in the case of Noonan versus M'Quade and others,—an aggravated case of homicide; I might go further, and apply to it the most awful term the vocabulary of justice contains! Your worship will remember that on that very interesting and important case a document was missing, of such a character that the main feature of the case seemed actually to hang upon it. This was no less than the deathbed confession of Noonan, formally taken before a justice of the peace, Mr. Styles, and written with all the accurate regard to circumstances the law exacts. Mr. Styles, the magistrate who took the deposition, was killed by a fall from his horse the following week; his clerk being ill, the individual who wrote the case was Con Cregan. Your worship may bear in mind that this man, when called to the witness box, denied all knowledge of this dying confession; asserted that what he took down in writing were simply some brief and unsatisfactory notes of the affray, all to the advantage of the M'Quades, and swore that Mr. Styles, who often alluded to the document as a confession, was entirely in error, the whole substance of it being unimportant and vague; some very illegible and-ill-written notes corroborating which were produced in court as the papers in question.
“Noonan being dead, and Mr. Styles also, the whole case rested on the evidence of Cregan; and although, your worship, the man's character for veracity was not of that nature among the persons of his own neighborhood to—”
“Confine yourself to the case, sir,” said the judge, “without introducing matter of mere common report.”
“I am in a position to prove my assertion,” said Morissy, triumphantly. “I hold here in my hand the abstracted documents, signed and sealed by Mr. Styles, and engrossed with every item of regularity. I have more: a memorandum purporting to be a copy of a receipt for eighteen pounds ten shillings, received by Cregan from Jos. M'Quade, the wages of this crime; and, if more were necessary, a promissory note from M'Quade for an additional sum of seven pounds, at six months' date. These are the papers which I am prepared to prove in court; this the evidence which a few minutes back I tendered in vain before you; and there,” said he, turning with a vindictive solemnity to where my father was standing, pale, but collected, “there's the man who, distinguished by your worship's confidence, I now arraign for the suppression of this evidence, and the composition of a felony!”
If Mr. Morissy was not perfectly correct in his law, there was still quite enough to establish a charge of misdemeanor against my father; and he was accordingly committed for trial at the approaching assizes, while I was delivered over to the charge of a police-sergeant, to be in readiness when my testimony should be required.
The downfall of a dynasty is sure to evoke severe recrimination against the late ruler; and now my parent, who but a few days past could have tilted the beam of justice at his mere pleasure, was overwhelmed with not merely abuse and attack, but several weighty accusations of crime were alleged against him. Not only was it discovered that he interfered with the due course of justice, but that he was a prime actor in, and contriver of, many of the scenes of insurrectionary disturbance which for years back had filled the country with alarm and the jails with criminals.
For one of these cases, a night attack for arms, the evidence was so complete and unquestionable that the Crown prosecutor, disliking the exhibition of a son giving evidence against his parent, dispensed with my attendance altogether, and prosecuting the graver charge obtained a verdict of guilty.
The sentence was transportation for life, with a confiscation of all property to the Crown. Thus my first step in life was to exile my father, and leave myself a beggar,—a promising beginning, it must be owned!
CHAPTER III. A FIRST STEP ON LIFE'S LADDER
It is among the strange and singular anomalies of our nature that however pleased men may be at the conviction of a noted offender, few of those instrumental to his punishment are held in honor and esteem. If all Kilbeggan rejoiced, as they did, at my father's downfall, a very considerable share of obloquy rested on me,—a species of judgment, I honestly confess, that I was not the least prepared for.
“There goes the little informer,” said they, as I passed; “what did ye get for hanging—” a very admirable piece of Irish exaggeration—“for hanging yer father, Con?” said one.
“Could n't ye help yer stepmother to a say voyage?” shouted another.
“And then we 'd be rid of yez all,” chimed in a third.
“He's rich now,” whined out an old beggar-man that often had eaten his potatoes at our fireside. “He's rich now, the chap is; he 'll marry a lady!”
This was the hardest to bear of all the slights, for not alone had I lost all pretension to my father's property, but the raggedness of my clothes and the general misery of my appearance might have saved me from the reproach of what is so forcibly termed “blood-money.”
“Come over to me this evening,” said Father Rush; and they were the only words of comfort I heard from any side. “Come over to me about six o'clock, Con, for I want to speak to you.”
They were long hours that intervened between that and six. I could not stay in the town, where every one I met had some sneer or scoff against me; I could not go home, I had none! and so I wandered out into the open country, taking my course towards a bleak common, about two miles off, where few, if any one, was like to be but myself.
This wild and dreary tract lay alongside of the main road to Athlone, and was traversed by several footpaths, by which the country people were accustomed to make “short cuts” to market, from one part of the road to another; for the way, passing through a bog, took many a winding turn as the ground necessitated.
There is a feeling of lonely desolation in wide far-stretching wastes that accords well with the purposeless vacuity of hopelessness; but, somehow or other, the very similitude between the scene without and the sense of desolation within, establishes a kind of companionship. Lear was speaking like a true philosopher when he uttered the words, “I like this rocking of the battlements.”
I had wandered some hours “here and there” upon the common; and it was now the decline of day when I saw at a little distance from me the figure of a young man whose dress and appearance bespoke condition, running along at a brisk pace, but evidently laboring under great fatigue.
The instant he saw me he halted, and cried out, “I say, my boy, is that Kilbeggan yonder, where I see the spire?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And where is the high-road to Athlone?”
“Yonder, sir, where the two trees are standing.”
“Have you seen the coach pass,—the mail for Athlone?”
“Yes, sir, she went through the town about half an hour ago.”
“Are ye certain, boy? are ye quite sure of this?” cried he, in a voice of great agitation.
“I am quite sure, sir; they always change horses at Moone's public-house; and I saw them 'draw up' there more than half an hour since.”
“Is there no other coach passes this road for Dublin?”
“The night mail, sir, but she does not go to-night; this is Saturday.”
“What is to be done?” said the youth, in deep sorrow; and he seated himself on a stone as he spoke, and hid his face between his hands.
As he sat thus, I had time to mark him well, and scan every detail of his appearance.
Although tall and stoutly knit, he could not have been above sixteen, or at most seventeen, years of age; his dress, a kind of shooting-jacket, was made in a cut that affected fashion; and I observed on one finger of his very white hand a ring which, even to my uneducated eyes, bespoke considerable value.
He looked up at last, and his eyes were very red, and a certain trembling of the lips showed that he was much affected. “I suppose, my lad, I can find a chaise or a carriage of some kind in Kilbeggan?” said he; “for I have lost the mail. I had got out for a walk, and by the advice of a countryman taken this path over the bog, expecting, as he told me, it would cut off several miles of way. I suppose I must have mistaken him, for I have been running for above an hour, and am too late after all; but still, if I can find a chaise, I shall be in time yet.”
“They 're all gone, sir,” said I; “and sorry am I to have such tidings to tell. The Sessions broke up to-day, and they're away with the lawyers to Kinnegad.”
“And how far is that from us?”
“Sixteen miles or more, by the road.”
“And how am I to get there?”
“Unless ye walk it—”
“Walk! impossible. I am dead beat already; besides, the time it would take would lose me all chance of reaching Dublin as I want.”
“Andy Smith has a horse, if he'd lend it; and there's a short road by Hogan's boreen.”
“Where does this Smith live?” said he, stopping me impatiently.
“Not a half mile from here; you can see the house from this.”
“Come along, then, and show me the way, my boy,” said he; and the gleam of hope seemed to lend alacrity to his movements.
Away we set together, and as we went, it was arranged between us that if Andy would hire out his mare, I should accompany the rider as guide, and bring back the animal to its owner, while the traveller proceeded on his journey to town.
The negotiation was tedious enough; for, at first, Andy would n't appear at all; he thought it was a process-server was after him,—a suspicion probably suggested by my presence, as it was generally believed that a rag of my father's mantle had descended to me. It was only after a very cautious and careful scrutiny of the young traveller through a small glass eye—it wasn't a window—in the mud wall that he would consent to come out. When he did so, he treated the proposal most indignantly. “Is it he hire out his baste? as if she was a dirty garraun of Betty Nowlan's of the head inn; he wondered who 'd ask the like!” and so on.
The youth, deterred by this reception, would have abandoned the scheme at once; but I, better acquainted with such characters as Andy, and knowing that his difficulties were only items in the intended charge, higgled, and bargained, and bullied, and blarneyed by turns; and, after some five and forty minutes of alternate joking and abusing each other, it was at last agreed on that the “baste” was to be ceded for the sum of fifteen shillings,—“two and sixpence more if his honor was pleased with the way she carried him;” the turnpike and a feed of oats being also at the charge of the rider, as well as all repairs of shoes incurred by loss or otherwise. Then there came a supplemental clause as to the peculiar care of the animal. How “she was n't to be let drink too much at once, for she 'd get the colic;” and if she needed shoeing, she was to have a “twitch” on her nose, or she'd kick the forge to “smithereens.” The same precaution to be taken if the saddle required fresh girthing; a hint was given, besides, not to touch her with the left heel, or she 'd certainly kick the rider with the hind leg of the same side; and, as a last caution given, to be on our guard at the cross-roads at Toomes-bridge, or she'd run away towards Croghan, where she once was turned out in foal. “Barring” these peculiarities, and certain smaller difficulties about mounting, “she was a lamb, and the sweetest-tempered crayture ever was haltered.”
In the very midst of this panegyric upon the animal's good and noble qualities he flung open the door of a little shed, and exhibited her to our view. I verily believe, whatever the urgency of the youth's reason for proceeding, that his heart failed him at the sight of the steed; a second's reconsideration seemed to rally his courage, and he said, “No matter, it can't be helped; saddle her at once, and let us be off.”
“That's easier said nor done,” muttered Andy to himself, as he stood at the door, without venturing a step farther. “Con,” said he, at last, in a species of coaxing tone I well knew boded peril, “Con, a cushla! get a hould of her by the head, that's a fine chap; make a spring at the forelock.”
“Maybe she 'd kick—”
“Sorra kick! get up there, now, and I'll be talking to you all the while.”
This proposition, though doubtless meant as most encouraging, by no means reassured me.
“Come, come! I'll bridle the infernal beast,” said the youth, losing all patience with both of us, and he sprung forward into the stable; but barely had he time to jump back, as the animal let fly with both hind legs together. Andy, well aware of what was coming, pulled us both back and shut to the door, against which the hoofs kept up one rattling din of kicks that shook the crazy edifice from roof to ground.
“Ye see what comes of startlin' her; the crayture's timid as a kid,” said Andy, whose blanched cheek badly corroborated his assumed composure. “Ye may do what ye plaze, barrin' putting a bridle on her; she never took kindly to that!”
“But do ye intend me to ride her without one?” said the youth.
“By no manner of means, sir,” said Andy, with a plausible slowness on each word that gave him time to think of an expedient. “I would n't be guilty of the like; none that knows me would ever say it to me: I 'm a poor man—”
“You're a devilish tiresome one,” broke in the youth, suddenly; “here we have been above half an hour standing at the door, and none the nearer our departure than when we arrived.”
“Christy Moore could bridle her, if he was here,” said Andy; “but he's gone to Moate, and won't be back till evening; may be that would do?”
A very impatient, and not very pious exclamation consigned Christy to an untimely fate. “Well, don't be angry, anyhow, sir,” said Andy; “there's many a thing a body might think of, if they were n't startled. See, now, I have a way this minute; an elegant fine way, too.”
“Well, what is it? Confound your long-winded speeches!”
“There, now, you're angry again! sure it's enough to give one quite a through-otherness, and not leave them time to reflect.”
“Your plan, your plan!” said the young man, his lips trembling with anger and impatience.
“Here it is, then; let the 'gossoon,'” meaning me, “get up on the roof and take off two or three of the scraws, the sods of grass, till he can get through, and then steal down on the mare's back; when he 's once on her, she 'll never stir head nor foot, and he can slip the bridle over her quite asy.”
“The boy might be killed; no, no, I 'll not suffer that—”
“Wait, sir,” cried I, interrupting, “it's not so hard, after all; once on her back, I defy her to throw me.”
“Sure I know that well; sorra better rider in the Meath hunt than little Con,” broke in Andy; backing me with a ready flattery he thought would deceive me.
It was not without reluctance that the youth consented to this forlorn hope, but he yielded at last; and so, with a bridle fastened round me like a scarf, I was hoisted on the roof by Andy, and, under a volley of encouraging expressions, exhorted to “go in and win.”
“There! there, a cushla!” cried Andy, as he saw me performing the first act of the piece with a vigor he had never calculated on; “'tis n't a coach and six ye want to drive through. Tear and ages! ye'll take the whole roof off.” The truth was, I worked away with a malicious pleasure in the destruction of the old miser's roof; nor is it quite certain how far my zeal might have carried me, when suddenly one of the rafters—mere light poles of ash—gave way, and down I went, at first slowly, and then quicker, into a kind of funnel formed by the smashed timbers and the earthen sods. The crash, the din, and the dust appeared to have terrified the wicked beast below, for she stood trembling in one corner of the stable, and never moved a limb as I walked boldly up and passed the bridle over her head. This done, I had barely time to spring on her back, when the door was forced open by the young gentleman, whose fears for my fate had absorbed every other thought.
“Are you safe, my boy, quite safe?” he cried, making his way over the fallen rubbish.
“Oh! the devil fear him,” cried Andy, in a perfect rage of passion; “I wish it was his bones was smashed, instead of the roof-sticks—see!—Och, murther, only look at this.” And Andy stood amid the ruins, a most comical picture of affliction, in part real and in part assumed. Meanwhile the youth had advanced to my side, and, with many a kind and encouraging word, more than repaid me for all my danger.
“'T is n't five pound will pay the damage,” cried Andy, running up on his fingers a sum of imaginary arithmetic.
“Where's the saddle, you old—” What the young man was about to add, I know not; but at a look from me he stopped short.
“Is it abusin' me you're for now, afther wrecking my house and destroying my premises?” cried Andy, whose temper was far from sweetened by the late catastrophe. “Sure what marcy my poor beast would get from the likes of ye! sorry step she 'll go in yer company; pay the damages ye done, and be off.”
Here was a new turn of affairs, and, judging from the irascibility of both parties, a most disastrous one; it demanded, indeed, all my skill,—all the practised dexterity of a mind trained, as mine had been been by many a subtlety, to effect a compromise, which I did thus: my patron being cast in the costs of all the damages to the amount of twenty shillings, and the original contract to be maintained in all its integrity.
The young man paid the money without speaking; but I had time to mark that the purse from which he drew it was far from weighty. “Are we free to go at last?” cried he, in a voice of suppressed wrath.
“Yes, yer honor; all's right,” answered Andy, whose heart was mollified at the sight of money. “A pleasant journey, and safe to ye; take good care of the beast, don't ride her over the stones, and—”
The remainder of the exhortation was lost to us, as we set forth in a short jog-trot, I running alongside.
“When we are once below the hill, yonder,” said I to my companion, “give her the whip, and make up for lose time.”
“And how are you to keep up, my lad?” asked he, in some surprise.
I could scarcely avoid a laugh at the simplicity of the question; as if an Irish gossoon, with his foot on his native bog, would n't be an overmatch in a day's journey for the best hack that ever ambled! Away we went, sometimes joking over, sometimes abusing, the old miser Andy, of whom, for my fellow-traveller's amusement, I told various little traits and stories, at which he laughed with a zest quite new to me to witness. My desire to be entertaining then led me on to speak of my father and his many curious adventures,—the skill with which he could foment litigation, and the wily stratagems by which he sustained it afterwards. All the cunning devices of the process-server I narrated with a gusto that smacked of my early training: how, sometimes, my crafty parent would append a summons to the collar of a dog, and lie in wait till he saw the owner take it off and read it, and then, emerging from his concealment, cry out “sarved,” and take to his heels; and again how he once succeeded in “serving” old Andy himself, by appearing as a beggar woman, and begging him to light a bit of paper to kindle her pipe. The moment, however, he took the bit of twisted paper, the assumed beggar-woman screamed out, “Andy, yer sarved: that's a process, my man!” The shock almost took Andy's life; and there's not a beggar in the barony dares to come near him since.
“Your father must be well off, then, I suppose,” said my companion.
“He was a few weeks ago, sir; but misfortune has come on us since that.” I was ashamed to go on, and yet I felt that strange impulse so strong in the Irish peasant to narrate anything of a character which can interest by harrowing and exciting the feelings.
Very little pressing was needed to make me recount the whole story, down to the departure of my father with the other prisoners sentenced to transportation.
“And whither were you going when I met you this morning on the common?” said my fellow-traveller, in a voice of some interest.
“To seek my fortune, sir,” was my brief answer; and either the words or the way they were uttered seemed to strike my companion, for he drew up short, and stared at me, repeating the phrase, “Seek your fortune!” “Just so,” said I, warmed by an enthusiasm which then was beginning to kindle within me, and which for many a long year since, and in many a trying emergency, has cheered and sustained me. “Just so; the world is wide, and there 's a path for every one, if they 'd only look for it.”
“But you saw what came of my taking a short cut, this morning,” said my companion, laughing.
“And you'd have been time enough too, if you had been always thinking of what you were about, sir; but as you told me, you began a thinking and a dreaming of twenty things far away. Besides, who knows what good turn luck may take, just at the very moment when we seem to have least of it?”
“You 're quite a philosopher, Con,” said he, smiling.
“So Father Mahon used to say, sir,” said I, proudly, and in reality highly flattered at the reiteration of the epithet.
Thus chatting, we journeyed along, lightening the way with talk, and making the hours seem to me the very pleasantest I had ever passed. At last we came in sight of the steeple of Kinnegad, which lay in the plain before us, about a mile distant.
The little town of Kinnegad was all astir as we entered it The “up mail” had just come down, in the main street, sending all its passengers flying in various directions,—through shop-windows; into cow-houses and piggeries; some being proudly perched on the roof of a cabin, and others most ignobly seated on a dunghill; the most lamentable figure of all being an elderly gentleman, who, having cut a summerset through an apothecary's window, came forth cut by a hundred small vials, and bearing on his person unmistakable evidence of every odor, from tar-water to assafotida. The conveyance itself lay, like the Ark after the Deluge, quietly reposing on one side; while animals male and female, “after their kind,” issued from within. Limping and disconsolate figures were being assisted into the inn; and black eyes and smashed faces were as rife as in a country fair.
I was not slow in appropriating the calamity to a good purpose. “See, sir,” I whispered to my companion, “you said, a while ago, that nobody had such bad luck as yourself; think what might have happened you, now, if you had n't missed the coach.”
“True enough, Con,” said he, “there is such a thing as being too late for bad as well as for good fortune; and I experience it now. But the next question is, how to get forward; for, of course, with a broken axle, the mail cannot proceed further.”
The difficulty was soon got over. The halt and the maimed passengers, after loudly inveighing against all coach-proprietors,—the man that made, and the man that horsed, he that drove, and he that greased the wheels of all public conveyances,—demanded loudly to be forwarded to the end of their journey by various chaises and other vehicles of the town; I at the same time making use of my legal knowledge to suggest that while doing so, they acted under protest; that it was “without prejudice” to any future proceedings they might deem fit to adopt for compensatory damages. If some laughed heartily at the source from which the hint came, others said I was a “devilish shrewd chap,” and insinuated something about a joint-stock subscription of sixpences for my benefit; but the motion was apparently unseconded, and so, like many benefactors of my species, I had to apply to my conscience for my reward; or, safer still, had to wait till I could pay myself.
My young companion, who now, in a few words, told me that he was a student at Trinity College and a “reader for honors,” pulled out his purse to pay me. “Remember, my boy, the name of Henry Lyndsay; I 'm easily found, if you chance to come to Dublin,—not that I can be of much service to any one, but I shall not forget the service you rendered me this day. Here, take this, pay for the mare's feeding, and when she has rested—”
I would not suffer him to proceed further, but broke in:
“I'm not going back, sir! I'll never turn my footsteps that way again! Leave the mare in the inn; Andy comes every Saturday here for the market, and will find her safe. As for me, I must 'seek my fortune;' and when one has to search for anything, there's nothing like beginning early.”
“You 're a strange fellow, Con,” said he, looking at me; and I was shrewd enough to see that his features exhibited no small astonishment at my words. “And where do you intend to look for this same fortune you speak of?”
“No one place in particular, sir! I read in an old book once, that good luck is like sunshine, and is not found in all climates at the same time; so I intend to ramble about; and when I breakfast on the sunny side of the apple, never stay to dine off the green one.”
“And you are the kind of fellow to succeed!” said he, half to himself, and rather as though reflecting on my words than addressing me.
“So I intend, sir,” replied I, confidently.
“Have you ever read 'Gil Blas,' Con?”
“I have it almost by heart, sir.”
“That's it!” said he, laughing; “I see whence you've got your taste for adventure. But remember, Con, Gil Blas lived in different times from ours, and in a very different land. He was, besides, a well-educated fellow, with no small share of good looks and good manners.”
“As for age and country, sir,” said I, boldly, “men and women are pretty much alike at all times, and in all places; in the old book I told you of a while ago, I read that human passions, like the features of the face, are only infinite varieties of the same few ingredients. Then, as to education and the rest,—what one man can pick up, so can another. The will is the great thing, and I feel it very strong in me. And now, to give a proof of it, I am determined to go up to Dublin, and with your honor too, and you'll see if I won't have my way.”
“So you shall, Con!” replied he, laughing; “I'll take you on the top of the chaise; and although I cannot afford to keep a servant, you shall stay with me in College until chance, in which you have such implicit faith, shall provide better for you. Come, now, lead the mare into the stable, for I see my companions are packing up to be gone.”
I was not slow in obeying the orders, and soon returned to assist my new master with his luggage. All was quickly settled; and a few minutes after saw me seated on a portmanteau on the roof on my way to Dublin.
CHAPTER IV. HOW I ENTERED COLLEGE, AND HOW I LEFT IT
It was still dark, on a drizzling morning in January, as we reached the Capital; the lamps shone faintly through the foggy, wet atmosphere; and the gloom was deepened as we entered the narrow streets at the west of the city. A few glimmering lights from five-stories high, showed where some early riser was awaking to his daily toil; while here and there, some rough-coated policeman stood at the corner of a street to be rained on; except these, no sign of living thing appeared; and I own the whole aspect was a sad damper to the ardor of that enthusiasm which had often pictured the great metropolis as some gorgeous fairy-land.
The carriage stopped twice, to set down two of the travellers, in obscure dingy streets, and then I heard Mr. Lyndsay say, “To the College;” and on we went through a long labyrinth of narrow lanes and thoroughfares, which gradually widened out into more spacious streets, and at length arrived at a great building, whose massive gates slowly opened to receive, and then solemnly closed after us. We now stood in a spacious quadrangle, silent and noiseless as a church at midnight.
Mr. Lyndsay hastily descended, and ordering me to carry in some of the baggage, I followed him into a large scantily furnished room, beyond which was a bedchamber, of like accommodation. “This is my home, Con,” said he, with a melancholy attempt at a smile; “and here,” said he, leading me to a small one-windowed room on the opposite side, “here is yours.” A bed, of that humble kind called a stretcher, placed against one wall, and a large chest for holding coals against the other, a bottomless chair, and a shoe-brush with very scanty bristles, constituted the entire furniture.
It was some time after all the luggage was removed before Mr. Lyndsay could get rid of the postilion; like all poor men in a like predicament, he had to bargain and reason and remonstrate, submitting to many a mortification, and enduring many a sore pang, at the pitiless ribaldry which knows nothing so contemptible as poverty; at last, after various reflections on the presumption of people who travel and cannot afford it, on their vanity, self-conceit, and so forth, the fellow departed, with what my ears assured me was no contemptible share of my poor master's purse.
I was sitting alone in my den during this scene, not wishing by my presence to add anything to his mortification; and, now all was still and noiseless, I waited for some time expecting to be called,—to be told of some trifling service to execute, or, at least, to be spoken to; but no, not a sound, not a murmur, was to be heard.
My own thoughts were none of the brightest: the ceaseless rain that streamed against the little window, and shut out all prospect of what was without; the cold and cheerless chamber and the death-like silence were like lead upon my heart.
I had often, in my reveries at home, fancied that all who were lifted above the cottier in life must have neither care nor sorrow; that real want was unknown, save in their class; and that all afflictions of those more highly placed were of a character too trifling to be deemed serious; and now suddenly there came to me the thought, What if every one had his share of grief? I vow, the very suspicion thrilled through me, and I sat still, dwelling on the sad theme with deep intensity.
As I sat thus, a sigh, low, but distinct, came from the adjoining chamber. I suddenly remembered my young master, and crept noiselessly to the door; it stood ajar, and I could see in, and mark everything well. He was sitting at a table covered with books and writing materials; a single candle threw its yellow glare over the whole, and lit up with a sickly tint the travel-worn and tired features of the youth.
As I looked, he leaned his forehead down upon his arm, and seemed either overcome by sorrow or fatigue; when suddenly a deep-booming bell sent forth a solemn peal, and made the very chamber vibrate with its din. Lyndsay started at the sound; a kind of shudder, like a convulsive throe, shook his limbs; and sitting up on his seat, he pushed back the falling hair from his eyes, and again addressed himself to his book. The heavy tolling sounds seemed now no longer to distract, but rather to nerve him to greater efforts, for he read on with an intense persistence; turning from volume to volume, and repeatedly noting down on the paper as he read.
Of a sudden the bell ceased, and Lyndsay arose from the table and passed into the bedroom, from which he almost instantaneously reappeared, dressed in his cap and gown,—a new and curious costume in my eyes, but which at the time was invested with a deep, mysterious interest to me.
I retired silently now to my room, and saw him pass out into the wide court. I hastened to look out. Already some hundred others in similar costume were assembled there, and the buzz of voices and the sound of many feet were a pleasant relief to the desert-like silence of the court as I had seen it before. The change was, however, of a very brief duration; in less than a minute the whole assemblage moved off and entered a great building, whose heavy door closed on them with a deep bang, and all was still once more.
I now set myself to think by what small services I could render myself acceptable to my young master. I arranged the scanty furniture into a resemblance, faint enough, certainly, to comfort, and made a cheerful fire with the remnant of the roomy coal-box. This done, I proceeded to put his clothes in order, and actually astonished myself with the skill I seemed to possess in my new walk. An intense curiosity to know what was going on without led me frequently to the door which led into the court; but I profited little by this step. The only figures which met my eye were now and then some elderly personage clad in his academic robes, gravely wending towards the “Hall,” and the far less imposing cries of some “college women,” as the hags are called who officiate as the University housemaids.
It was at one of these visits that suddenly I heard the great door of the “Hall” burst open with a crash, and immediately down the steps poured the black tide of figures, talking and laughing in one multifarious din that seemed to fill the very air. Cautiously withdrawing, I closed the door, and retired; but scarcely had I reached my room, when young Lyndsay passed through to his own chamber: his cheek was flushed, and his eyes sparkled with animation, and his whole air and gesture indicated great excitement.
Having removed his cravat, and bathed his temples with cold water, he once more sat down before his books, and was soon so immersed in study as not to hear my footsteps as I entered.
I stood uncertain, and did not dare to interrupt him for some minutes; the very intensity of his application awed me. Indeed, I believe I should have retired without a word, had he not accidentally looked up and beheld me. “Eh!—what!—how is this?” cried he, endeavoring to recall his mind from the themes before him; “I had forgotten you, my poor boy, and you have had no breakfast.”
“And you, sir?” said I, in reality more interested for him than myself.
“Take this, Con,” said he, not heeding my remark, and giving me a piece of silver from his purse; “get yourself something to eat: to-morrow, or next day, we shall arrange these things better; for at this moment my head has its load of other cares.”
“But will you not eat something?” said I; “you have not tasted food since we met.”
“We are expected to breakfast with our tutor on the examination mornings, Con,” said he; and then, not seeming to feel the inconsistency of his acts with his words, he again bent his head over the table, and lost all remembrance of either me or our conversation. I stole noiselessly away, and sallied forth to seek my breakfast where I could.
There were few loiterers in the court; a stray student hurrying past, or an old slipshod hag of hideous aspect and squalid misery, were all I beheld; but both classes' bestowed most unequivocal signs of surprise at my country air and appearance, and to my question, where I could buy some bread and milk, answers the most cynical or evasive were returned. While I was yet endeavoring to obtain from one of the ancient maidens alluded to some information on the point, two young men, with velvet caps and velvet capes on their gowns, stopped to listen.
“I say, friend,” cried one, seemingly the younger of the two, “when did you enter?”