Tales and Novels — Volume 04

CHAPTER IV.

One morning—it was the day after my physicians had pronounced me out of all danger—Crawley sent me a note by Ellinor, congratulating me upon my recovery, and begging to speak to me for half an hour. I refused to see him; and said, that I was not yet well enough to do business. The same morning Ellinor came with a message from Turner, my steward, who, with his humble duty, requested to see me for five minutes, to communicate to me something of importance. I consented to see Turner. He entered with a face of suppressed joy and affected melancholy.

“Sad news I am bound in duty to be the bearer of, my lord. I was determined, whatever came to pass, however, not to speak till your honour was out of danger, which, I thank Heaven, is now the case, and I am happy to be able to congratulate your lordship upon looking as well as—”

“Never mind my looks. I will excuse your congratulations, Mr. Turner,” said I, impatiently; for the recollection of the banqueting-house, and the undertaker whom Turner was so eager to introduce, came full into my mind. “Go on, if you please; five minutes is all I am at present able to give to any business, and you sent me word you had something of importance to communicate.”

“True, my lord; but in case your lordship is not at present well enough, or not so disposed, I will wait your lordship’s leisure.”

“Now or never, Mr. Turner. Speak, but speak at once.”

“My lord, I would have done so long ago, but was loth to make mischief; and besides, could not believe what I heard whispered, and would scarce believe what I verily saw; though now, as I cannot reasonably have a doubt, I think it would be a sin, and a burden upon my conscience, not to speak; only that I am unwilling to shock your lordship too much, when but just recovering, for that is not the time one would wish to tell or to hear disagreeable things.”

“Mr. Turner, either come to the point at once, or leave me; for I am not strong enough to bear this suspense.”

“I beg pardon, my lord: why then, my lord, the point is Captain Crawley.”

“What of him? I never desire to hear his name again.”

“Nor I, I am sure, my lord; but there are some in the house might not be of our opinion.”

“Who? you sneaking fellow; speak out, can’t you?”

“My lady—my lord—Now it is out. She’ll go off with him this night, if not prevented.”

My surprise and indignation were as great as if I had always been the fondest and the most attentive of husbands. I was at length roused from that indifference and apathy into which I had sunk; and though I had never loved my wife, the moment I knew she was lost to me for ever was exquisitely painful. Astonishment, the sense of disgrace, the feeling of rage against that treacherous parasite by whom she had been seduced, all combined to overwhelm me. I could command my voice only enough to bid Turner leave the room, and tell no one that he had spoken to me on this subject. “Not a soul,” he said, “should be told, or could guess it.”

Left to my own reflections, as soon as the first emotions of anger subsided, I blamed myself for my conduct to Lady Glenthorn. I considered that she had been married to me by her friends, when she was too young and too childish to judge for herself; that from the first day of our marriage I had never made the slightest effort to win her affections, or to guide her conduct; that, on the contrary, I had shown her marked indifference, if not aversion. With fashionable airs, I had professed, that provided she left me at liberty to spend the large fortune which she brought me, and in consideration of which she enjoyed the title of Countess of Glenthorn, I cared for nothing farther. With the consequences of my neglect I now reproached myself in vain. Lady Glenthorn’s immense fortune had paid my debts, and had for two years supplied my extravagance, or rather my indolence: little remained, and she was now, in her twenty-third year, to be consigned to public disgrace, and to a man whom I knew to be destitute of honour and feeling. I pitied her, and resolved to go instantly and make an effort to save her from destruction.

Ellinor, who watched all Crawley’s motions, informed me, that he was gone to a neighbouring town, and had left word that he should not be home till after dinner. Lady Glenthorn was in her dressing-room, which was at a part of the house farthest from that which I now inhabited. I had never left my room since my illness, and had scarcely walked farther than from my bed to my arm-chair; but I was so much roused by my feelings at this instant, that, to Ellinor’s great astonishment, I started from my chair, and, forbidding her to follow me, walked without any assistance along the corridor, which led to the back-stairs, and to Lady Glenthorn’s apartment. I opened the private door of her dressing-room suddenly—the room was in great disorder—her woman was upon her knees packing a trunk: Lady Glenthorn was standing at a table, with a parcel of open letters before her, and a diamond necklace in her hand. She started at the sight of me as if she had beheld a ghost: the maid screamed, and ran to a door at the farther end of the room, to make her escape, but that was bolted. Lady Glenthorn was pale and motionless, till I approached; and then, recollecting herself, she reddened all over, and thrust the letters into her table-drawer. Her woman, at the same instant, snatched a casket of jewels, swept up in her arms a heap of clothes, and huddled them all together into the half-packed trunk.

“Leave the room,” said I to her sternly. She locked the trunk, pocketed the key, and obeyed.

I placed a chair for Lady Glenthorn, and sat down myself. We were almost equally unable to stand. We were silent for some moments. Her eyes were fixed upon the ground, and she leaned her head upon her hand in an attitude of despair. I could scarcely articulate; but making an effort to command my voice, I at last said—

“Lady Glenthorn, I blame myself more than you for all that has happened.”

“For what?” said she, making a feeble attempt at evasion, yet at the same time casting a guilty look towards the drawer of letters.

“You have nothing to conceal from me,” said I.

“Nothing!” said she, in a feeble voice.

“Nothing,” said I; “for I know every thing”—she started—“and am willing to pardon every thing.”

She looked up in my face astonished. “I am conscious,” continued I, “that you have not been well treated by me. You have had much reason to complain of my neglect. To this I attribute your error. Forget the past—I will set you the example. Promise me never to see the man more, and what has happened shall never be known to the world.”

She made me no answer, but burst into a flood of tears. She seemed incapable of decision, or even of thought. I felt suddenly inspired with energy.

“Write this moment,” continued I, placing a pen and ink before her, “write to forbid him ever to return to this house, or ever more to appear in your presence. If he should appear in mine, I know how to chastise him, and to vindicate my own honour. To preserve your reputation, I refrain, upon these conditions, from making my contempt of him public.”

I put a pen into Lady Glenthorn’s hand; but she trembled so that she could not write. She made several ineffectual attempts, then tore the paper; and again giving way to tears, exclaimed, “I cannot write—I cannot think—I do not know what to say. Write what you will, and I will sign it.”

“I write to Captain Crawley! Write what I will! Lady Glenthorn, it must be your will to write, not mine. If it be not your will, say so.”

“Oh! I do not say so—I do not say that. Give me a moment’s time. I do not know what I say. I have been very foolish—very wicked. You are very good—but it is too late: it will all be known. Crawley will betray me; he will tell it to Mrs. Mattocks: so whichever way I turn, I am undone. Oh! what will become of me?”

She wrung her hands and wept, and was for an hour in this state, in all the indecision and imbecility of a child. At last, she wrote a few scarcely legible lines to Crawley, forbidding him to see or think of her more. I despatched the note, and she was full of penitence, and gratitude, and tears. The next morning, when I wakened, I in my turn received a note from her ladyship.

“Since I saw you, Captain Crawley has convinced me that I am his wife, in the eye of Heaven, and I therefore desire a divorce, as much as your whole conduct, since my marriage, convinces me you must in your heart, whatever may be your motives to pretend otherwise. Before you receive this I shall be out of your way and beyond your reach; so do not think of pursuing one who is no longer,

“Yours,

“A. CRAWLEY.”

After reading this note, I thought not of pursuing or saving Lady Glenthorn. I was as anxious for a divorce as she could be. Some months afterwards the affair was brought to a public trial. When the cause came on, so many circumstances were brought in mitigation of damages, to prove my utter carelessness respecting my wife’s conduct, that a suspicion of collusion arose. From this imputation I was clear in the opinion of all who really knew me; and I repelled the charge publicly, with a degree of indignation that surprised all who knew the usual apathy of my temper. I must observe, that during the whole time my divorce-bill was pending, and whilst I was in the greatest possible anxiety, my health was perfectly good. But no sooner was the affair settled, and a decision made in my favour, than I relapsed into my old nervous complaints.

CHAPTER V.

Illness was a sort of occupation to me, and I was always sorry to get well. When the interest of being in danger ceased, I had no other to supply its place. I fancied that I should enjoy my liberty after my divorce; but “even freedom grew tasteless.” I do not recollect any thing that wakened me from my torpor, during two months after my divorce, except a violent quarrel between all my English servants and my Irish nurse. Whether she assumed too much, upon the idea that she was a favourite, or whether national prejudice was alone the cause of the hatred, that prevailed against her, I know not; but they one and all declared that they could not, and would not, live with her. She expressed the same dislike to consorting with them; “but would put up with worse, ay, with the devils themselves, to oblige my honour, and to lie under the same roof wid my honour.”

The rest of the servants laughed at her blunders. This she could bear with good-humour; but when they seriously affected to reproach her with having, by her uncouth appearance, at her first presenting herself at Sherwood Park, endangered my life, she retorted, “And who cared for him in the wide world but I, amongst you all, when he lay for dead? I ask you that,” said she.

To this there was no reply; and they hated her the more for their having been silenced by her shrewdness. I protected her as long as I could; but, for the sake of peace, I at last yielded to the combined forces of the steward’s room and the servants’ hall, and despatched Ellinor to Ireland, with a renewal of the promise that I would visit Glenthorn Castle this year or the next. To comfort her at parting, I would have made her a considerable present; but she would take only a few guineas, to bear her expenses back to her native place. The sacrifice I made did not procure me a peace of any continuance in my own house:—ruined by indulgence, and by my indolent, reckless temper, my servants were now my masters. In a large, ill-regulated establishment, domestics become, like spoiled children, discontented, capricious, and the tyrants over those who have not the sense or steadiness to command. I remember one delicate puppy parted with me, because, as he informed me, the curtains of his bed did not close at the foot; he had never been used to such a thing, and had told the housekeeper so three times, but could obtain no redress, which necessitated him to beg my permission to retire from the service.

In his stead another coxcomb came to offer himself, who, with an incomparably easy air, begged to know whether I wanted a man of figure or a man of parts? For the benefit of those to whom this fashionable classification of domestics may not be familiar, I should observe, that the department of a man of figure is specially and solely to announce company on gala days; the business of the man of parts is multifarious: to write cards of invitation, to speak to impertinent tradesmen, to carry confidential messages, et cetera. Now, where there is an et cetera in an agreement, there is always an opening for dispute. The functions of the man of parts not being accurately defined, I unluckily required from him some service which was not in his bond; I believe it was to go for my pocket handkerchief: “He could not possibly do it, because it was not his business;” and I, the laziest of mortals, after waiting a full quarter of an hour, whilst they were settling whose business it was to obey me, was forced to get up and go for what I wanted. I comforted myself by the recollection of the poor king of Spain and le brasier. With a regal precedent I could not but be satisfied. All great people, said I to myself, are obliged to submit to these inconveniences. I submitted with so good a grace, that my submission was scarcely felt to be a condescension. My bachelor’s house soon exhibited in perfection “High Life below Stairs.”

It is said that a foreign nobleman permitted his servants to take their own way so completely, that one night he and his guests being kept waiting an unconscionable time for supper, he at last went down stairs to inquire into the cause of the delay: he found the servant, whose business it was to take up supper, quietly at cards with a large party of his friends. The man coolly remonstrated, that it was impossible to leave his game unfinished. The master candidly acknowledged the force of his plea; but insisted upon the man’s going up stairs to lay the cloth for supper, whilst he took his cards, sat down, and finished the game for him.

The suavity of my temper never absolutely reached this degree of complaisance. My home was disagreeable to me: I had not the resolution to remove the causes of the discontents. Every day I swore I would part with all these rascals the next morning; but still they stayed. Abroad I was not happier than at home. I was disgusted with my former companions: they had convinced me, the night of my accident at Sherwood Park, that they cared not whether I was alive or dead; and ever since that time I had been more and more struck with their selfishness as well as folly. It was inexpressibly fatiguing and irksome to me to keep up a show of good fellowship and joviality with these people, though I had not sufficient energy to make the attempt to quit them. When these dashers and loungers found that I was not always at their disposal, they discovered that Glenthorn had always something odd about him; that Glenthorn had always a melancholy turn; that it ran in the family, &c. Satisfied with these phrases, they let me take my own way, and forgot my existence. Public amusements had lost their charm; I had sufficient steadiness to resist the temptation to game: but, for want of stimulus, I could hardly endure the tedium of my days. At this period of my life, ennui was very near turning into misanthropy. I balanced between becoming a misanthrope and a democrat.

Whilst I was in this critical state of ineptitude, my attention was accidentally roused by the sight of a boxing-match. My feelings were so much excited, and the excitation was so delightful, that I was now in danger of becoming an amateur of the pugilistic art. It did not occur to me, that it was beneath the dignity of a British nobleman to learn the vulgar terms of the boxing trade. I soon began to talk very knowingly of first-rate bruisers, game men, and pleasing fighters; making play—beating a man under the ropes—sparring—rallying—sawing—and chopping. What farther proficiency I might have made in this language, or how long my interest in these feats of prize-fighters might have continued, had I been left to myself, I cannot determine; but I was unexpectedly seized with a fit of national shame, on hearing a foreigner of rank and reputation express astonishment at our taste for these savage spectacles. It was in vain that I repeated the arguments of some of the parliamentary panegyrists of boxing and bull-baiting; and asserted, that these diversions render a people hardy and courageous. My opponent replied, that he did not perceive the necessary connexion between cruelty and courage; that he did not comprehend how the standing by in safety to see two men bruise each other almost to death could evince or inspire heroic sentiments or warlike dispositions. He observed, that the Romans were most eager for the fights of gladiators during the reigns of the most effeminate and cruel emperors, and in the decline of all public spirit and virtue. These arguments would have probably made but a feeble impression on an understanding like mine, unaccustomed to general reasoning, and on a temper habituated to pursue, without thought of consequences, my immediate individual gratification; but it happened that my feelings were touched at this time by the dreadful sufferings of one of the pugilistic combatants. He died a few hours after the battle. He was an Irishman: most of the spectators being English, and triumphing in the victory of their countryman, the poor fellow’s fate was scarcely noticed. I spoke to him a little while before he died, and found that he came from my own county. His name was Michael Noonan. He made it his dying request, that I would carry half-a-guinea, the only money he possessed, to his aged father, and a silk handkerchief he had worn round his neck, to his sister. Pity for this unfortunate Irishman recalled Ireland to my thoughts. Many small reasons concurred to make me now desirous of going to that country. I should get rid at once of a tormenting establishment, and of servants, without the odium of turning them away; for most of them declined going into banishment, as they called it. Besides this, I should leave my companions, with whom I was disgusted. I was tired of England, and wanted to see something new, even if it were to be worse than what I had seen before. These were not my ostensible reasons: I professed to have more exalted motives for my journey. It was my duty, I said, to visit my Irish estate, and to encourage my tenantry, by residing some time among them. Duties often spring up to our view at a convenient opportunity. Then my promise to poor Ellinor; it was impossible for a man of honour to break a promise, even to an old woman: in short, when people are determined upon any action, they seldom fail to find arguments capable of convincing them that their resolution is reasonable. Mixed motives govern the conduct of half mankind; so I set out upon my journey to Ireland.

CHAPTER VI.

I was detained six days by contrary winds at Holyhead. Sick of that miserable place, in my ill-humour I cursed Ireland, and twice resolved to return to London: but the wind changed, my carriage was on board the packet; so I sailed and landly safely in Dublin. I was surprised by the excellence of the hotel at which I was lodged. I had not conceived that such accommodation could have been found in Dublin. The house had, as I was told, belonged to a nobleman: it was fitted up and appointed with a degree of elegance, and even magnificence, beyond what I had been used to in the most fashionable hotels in London.

“Ah! sir,” said an Irish gentleman, who found me in admiration upon the staircase, “this is all very good, very fine, but it is too good and too fine to last; come here again in two years, and I am afraid you will see all this going to rack and ruin. This is too often the case with us in Ireland: we can project, but we can’t calculate; we must have every thing upon too large a scale. We mistake a grand beginning for a good beginning. We begin like princes, and we end like beggars.”

I rested only a few days in a capital in which, I took it for granted, there could be nothing worth seeing by a person who was just come from London. In driving through the streets, I was, however, surprised to see buildings, which my prejudices could scarcely believe to be Irish. I also saw some things, which recalled to my mind the observations I had heard at my hotel. I was struck with instances of grand beginnings and lamentable want of finish, with mixture of the magnificent and the paltry; of admirable and execrable taste. Though my understanding was wholly uncultivated, these things struck my eye. Of all the faculties of my mind, my taste had been most exercised, because its exercise had given me least trouble.

Impatient to see my own castle, I left Dublin. I was again astonished by the beauty of the prospects, and the excellence of the roads. I had in my ignorance believed that I was never to see a tree in Ireland, and that the roads were almost impassable. With the promptitude of credulity, I now went from one extreme to the other: I concluded that we should travel with the same celerity as upon the Bath road; and I expected, that a journey for which four days had been allotted might be performed in two. Like all those who have nothing to do any where, I was always in a prodigious hurry to get from place to place; and I ever had a noble ambition to go over as much ground as possible in a given space of time. I travelled in a light barouche, and with my own horses. My own man (an Englishman), and my cook (a Frenchman), followed in a hackney chaise; I cared not how, so that they kept up with me; the rest was their affair. At night, my gentleman complained bitterly of the Irish post carriages, and besought me to let him follow at an easier rate the next day; but to this I could by no means consent: for how could I exist without my own man and my French cook? In the morning, just as I was ready to set off, and had thrown myself back in my carriage, my Englishman and Frenchman came to the door, both in so great a rage, that the one was inarticulate and the other unintelligible. At length the object of their indignation spoke for itself. From the inn yard came a hackney chaise, in a most deplorable crazy state; the body mounted up to a prodigious height, on unbending springs, nodding forwards, one door swinging open, three blinds up, because they could not be let down, the perch tied in two places, the iron of the wheels half off, half loose, wooden pegs for linch-pins, and ropes for harness. The horses were worthy of the harness; wretched little dog-tired creatures, that looked as if they had been driven to the last gasp, and as if they had never been rubbed down in their lives; their bones starting through their skin; one lame, the other blind; one with a raw back, the other with a galled breast; one with his neck poking down over his collar, and the other with his head dragged forward by a bit of a broken bridle, held at arm’s length by a man dressed like a mad beggar, in half a hat and half a wig, both awry in opposite directions; a long tattered great-coat, tied round his waist by a hay-rope; the jagged rents in the skirts of his coat showing his bare legs marbled of many colours; while something like stockings hung loose about his ankles. The noises he made by way of threatening or encouraging his steeds, I pretend not to describe.

In an indignant voice I called to the landlord, “I hope these are not the horses—I hope this is not the chaise, intended for my servants.”

The innkeeper, and the pauper who was preparing to officiate as postilion, both in the same instant exclaimed, “Sorrow better chaise in the county!”

“Sorrow” said I; “what do you mean by sorrow?”

“That there’s no better, plase your honour, can be seen. We have two more, to be sure; but one has no top, and the other no bottom. Any way there’s no better can be seen than this same.” 77

“And these horses!” cried I; “why, this horse is so lame he can hardly stand.”

“Oh, plase your honour, tho’ he can’t stand, he’ll go fast enough. He has a great deal of the rogue in him, plase your honour. He’s always that way at first setting out.”

“And that wretched animal with the galled breast!”

“He’s all the better for it, when once he warms; it’s he that will go with the speed of light, plase your honour. Sure, is not he Knockecroghery? and didn’t I give fifteen guineas for him, barring the luck penny, at the fair of Knockecroghery, and he rising four year old at the same time?”

I could not avoid smiling at this speech: but my gentleman, maintaining his angry gravity, declared, in a sullen tone, that he would be cursed if he went with such horses; and the Frenchman, with abundance of gesticulation, made a prodigious chattering, which no mortal understood.

“Then I’ll tell you what you’ll do,” said Paddy; “you’ll take four, as becomes gentlemen of your quality, and you’ll see how we’ll powder along.”

And straight he put the knuckle of his fore-finger in his mouth, and whistled shrill and strong; and, in a moment, a whistle somewhere out in the fields answered him.

I protested against these proceedings, but in vain; before the first pair of horses were fastened to the chaise, up came a little boy with the others fresh from the plough. They were quick enough in putting these to; yet how they managed it with their tackle, I know not. “Now we’re fixed handsomely,” said Paddy.

“But this chaise will break down the first mile.”

“Is it this chaise, plase your honour? I’ll engage it will go the world’s end. The universe wouldn’t break it down now; sure it was mended but last night.”

Then seizing his whip and reins in one hand, he clawed up his stockings with the other: so with one easy step he got into his place, and seated himself, coachman-like, upon a well-worn bar of wood, that served as a coach-box. “Throw me the loan of a trusty Bartly, for a cushion,” said he. A frieze coat was thrown up over the horses’ heads—Paddy caught it. “Where are you, Hosey?” cried he. “Sure I’m only rowling a wisp of straw on my leg,” replied Hosey. “Throw me up,” added this paragon of postilions, turning to one of the crowd of idle bystanders. “Arrah, push me up, can’t ye?”

A man took hold of his knee, and threw him upon the horse: he was in his seat in a trice; then clinging by the mane of his horse, he scrambled for the bridle, which was under the other horse’s feet—reached it, and, well satisfied with himself, looked round at Paddy, who looked back to the chaise-door at my angry servants, “secure in the last event of things.” In vain the Englishman in monotonous anger, and the Frenchman in every note of the gamut, abused Paddy: necessity and wit were on Paddy’s side; he parried all that was said against his chaise, his horses, himself, and his country, with invincible comic dexterity, till at last, both his adversaries, dumb-foundered, clambered into the vehicle, where they were instantly shut up in straw and darkness. Paddy, in a triumphant tone, called to my postilions, bidding them “get on, and not be stopping the way any longer.”

Without uttering a syllable, they drove on; but they could not, nor could I, refrain from looking back to see how those fellows would manage. We saw the fore-horses make towards the right, then to the left, and every way but straight forwards; whilst Paddy bawled to Hosey—“Keep the middle of the road, can’t ye? I don’t want ye to draw a pound at-all-at-all.”

At last, by dint of whipping, the four horses were compelled to set off in a lame gallop; but they stopped short at a hill near the end of the town, whilst a shouting troop of ragged boys followed, and pushed them fairly to the top. Half an hour afterwards, as we were putting on our drag-chain to go down another steep hill,—to my utter astonishment, Paddy, with his horses in full gallop, came rattling and chehupping past us. My people called to warn him that he had no drag: but still he cried “Never fear!” and shaking the long reins, and stamping with his foot, on he went thundering down the hill. My Englishmen were aghast.

“The turn yonder below, at the bottom of the hill, is as sharp and ugly as ever I see,” said my postilion, after a moment’s stupified silence. “He will break their necks, as sure as my name is John.”

Quite the contrary: when we had dragged and undragged, and came up to Paddy, we found him safe on his legs, mending some of his tackle very quietly.

“If that had broken as you were going down the steep hill,” said I, “it would have been all over with you, Paddy.”

“That’s true, plase your honour: but it never happened me going down hill—nor never will, by the blessing of God, if I’ve any luck.”

With this mixed confidence in a special providence, and in his own good luck, Paddy went on, much to my amusement. It was his glory to keep before us; and he rattled on till he came to a narrow part of the road, where they were rebuilding a bridge. Here there was a dead stop. Paddy lashed his horses, and called them all manner of names; but the wheel horse, Knockecroghery, was restive, and at last began to kick most furiously. It seemed inevitable that the first kick which should reach the splinter-bar, at which it was aimed, must demolish it instantly. My English gentleman and my Frenchman both put their heads out of the only window which was pervious, and called most manfully to be let out. “Never fear,” said Paddy. To open the door for themselves was beyond their force or skill. One of the hind wheels, which had belonged to another carriage, was too high to suffer the door to be opened, and the blind at the other side prevented their attempts, so they were close prisoners. The men who had been at work on the broken bridge came forward, and rested on their spades to see the battle. As my carriage could not pass, I was also compelled to be a spectator of this contest between man and horse.

“Never fear,” reiterated Paddy; “I’ll engage I’ll be up wid him. Now for it, Knockecroghery! Oh, the rogue, he thinks he has me at a nonplush, but I’ll show him the differ.”

After this brag of war, Paddy whipped, Knockecroghery kicked; and Paddy, seemingly unconscious of danger, sat within reach of the kicking horse, twitching up first one of his legs, then the other, and shifting as the animal aimed his hoofs, escaping every time as it were by miracle. With a mixture of temerity and presence of mind, which made us alternately look upon him as a madman and a hero, he gloried in the danger, secure of success, and of the sympathy of the spectators.

“Ah! didn’t I compass him cleverly then? Oh, the villain, to be browbating me! I’m too cute for him yet. See there, now, he’s come to; and I’ll be his bail he’ll go asy enough wid me. Ogh! he has a fine spirit of his own, but it’s I that can match him: ‘twould be a poor case if a man like me cou’dn’t match a horse any way, let alone a mare, which this is, or it never would be so vicious.”

After this hard-fought battle, and suitable rejoicing for the victory, Paddy walked his subdued adversary on a few yards to allow us to pass him; but, to the dismay of my postilions, a hay-rope was at this instant thrown across the road, before our horses, by the road-makers, who, to explain this proceeding, cried out, “Plase your honour, the road is so dry, we’d expect a trifle to wet it.”

“What do these fellows mean?” said I.

“It’s only a tester or a hog they want, your honour, to give ‘em to drink your honour’s health,” said Paddy.

“A hog to drink my health?”

“Ay, that is a thirteen, plase your honour; all as one as an English shilling.”

I threw them a shilling: the hay-rope was withdrawn, and at last we went on. We heard no more of Paddy till evening. He came in two hours after us, and expected to be doubly paid for driving my honour’s gentlemen so well.

I must say that on this journey, though I met with many delays and disasters; though one of my horses was lamed in shoeing by a smith, who came home drunk from a funeral; and though the back pannel of my carriage was broken by the pole of a chaise; and though one day I went without my dinner at a large desolate inn, where nothing was to be had but whiskey; and though one night I lay in a little smoky den, in which the meanest of my servants in England would have thought it impossible to sleep; and though I complained bitterly, and swore it was impracticable for a gentleman to travel in Ireland; yet I never remember to have experienced, on any journey, less ennui.78 I was out of patience twenty times a day, but I certainly felt no ennui; and I am convinced that the benefit some patients receive from a journey is in an inverse proportion to the ease and luxury of their mode of travelling. When they are compelled to exert their faculties, and to use their limbs, they forget their nerves, as I did. Upon this principle I should recommend to wealthy hypochondriacs a journey in Ireland, preferably to any country in the civilized world. I can promise them, that they will not only be moved to anger often enough to make their blood circulate briskly, but they will even, in the acme of their impatience, be thrown into salutary convulsions of laughter, by the comic concomitants of their disasters: besides, if they have hearts, their best feelings cannot fail to be awakened by the warm, generous hospitality they will receive in this country, from the cabin to the castle.

Late in the evening of the fourth day, we came to an inn on the verge of the county where my estate was situate. It was one of the wildest parts of Ireland. We could find no horses, nor accommodations of any sort, and we had several miles farther to go. For our only comfort, the dirty landlady, who had married the hostler, and wore gold drop ear-rings, reminded us, that, “Sure, if we could but wait an hour, and take a fresh egg, we should have a fine moon.”

After many fruitless imprecations, my French cook was obliged to mount one of my saddle-horses; my groom was left to follow us the next day; I let my gentleman sit on the barouche box, and proceeded with my own tired horses. The moon, which my landlady had promised me, rose, and I had a full view of the face of the country. As we approached my maritime territories, the cottages were thinly scattered, and the trees had a stunted appearance; they all slanted one way, from the prevalent winds that blew from the ocean. Our road presently stretched along the beach, and I saw nothing to vary the prospect but rocks, and their huge shadows upon the water. The road being sandy, the feet of the horses made no noise, and nothing interrupted the silence of the night but the hissing sound of the carriage-wheels passing through the sand.

“What o’clock is it now, think you, John?” said one of my postilions to the other.

“Past twelve, for sartain,” said John; “and this bees a strange Irish place,” continued he, in a drawling voice; “with no possible way o’ getting at it, as I see.” John, after a pause, resumed, “I say, Timothy, to the best of my opinion, this here road is leading on us into the sea.” John replied, “that he did suppose there might be such a thing as a boat farther on, but where, he could not say for sartain.” Dismayed and helpless, they at last stopped to consult whether they had come the right road to the house. In the midst of their consultation there came up an Irish carman, whistling as he walked beside his horse and car.

“Honest friend, is this the road to Glenthorn Castle?”

“To Glenthorn, sure enough, your honour.”

“Whereabouts is the castle?”

“Forenent you, if you go on to the turn.”

“Forenent you!” As the postilions pondered upon this word, the carman, leaving his horse, and car, turned back to explain by action what he could not make intelligible by words.

“See, isn’t here the castle?” cried he, darting before us to the turn of the road, where he stood pointing at what we could not possibly see, as it was hid by a promontory of rock. When we f reached the spot where he was stationed, we came full upon the view of Glenthorn Castle: it seemed to rise from the sea, abrupt and insulated, in all the gloomy grandeur of ancient times, with turrets and battlements, and a huge gateway, the pointed arch of which receded in perspective between the projecting towers.

“It’s my lord himself, I’m fond to believe!” said our guide, taking off his hat; “I had best step on and tell ‘em at the castle.”

“No, my good friend, there is no occasion to trouble you farther; you had better go back to your horse and car, which you have left on the road.”

“Oh! they are used to that, plase your honour; they’ll go on very quite, and I’ll run like a redshank with the news to the castle.”

He ran on before us with surprising velocity, whilst our tired horses dragged us slowly through the sand. As we approached, the gateway of the castle opened, and a number of men, who appeared to be dwarfs when compared with the height of the building, came out with torches in their hands. By their bustle, and the vehemence with which they bawled to one another, one might have thought that the whole castle was in flames; but they were only letting down a drawbridge. As I was going over this bridge, a casement window opened in the castle; and a voice, which I knew to be old Ellinor’s, exclaimed, “Mind the big hole in the middle of the bridge, God bless yees!”

I passed over the broken bridge, and through the massive gate, under an arched way, at the farthest end of which a lamp had just been lighted: then I came into a large open area, the court of the castle. The hollow sound of the horses’ feet, and of the carriage rumbling over the drawbridge, was immediately succeeded by the strange and eager voices of the people, who filled the court with a variety of noises, contrasting, in the most striking manner, with the silence in which we had travelled over the sands. The great effect that my arrival instantaneously produced upon the multitude of servants and dependants, who issued from the castle, gave me an idea of my own consequence beyond any thing which I had ever felt in England. These people seemed “born for my use:” the officious precipitation with which they ran to and fro; the style in which they addressed me; some crying, “Long life to the Earl of Glenthorn!” some blessing me for coming to reign over them; all together gave more the idea of vassals than of tenants, and carried my imagination centuries back to feudal times.

The first person I saw on entering the hall of my castle was poor Ellinor: she pushed her way up to me—

“‘Tis himself!” cried she. Then turning about suddenly, “I’ve seen him in his own castle—I’ve seen him; and if it pleases God this minute to take me to himself, I would die with pleasure.”

“My good Ellinor,” said I, touched to the heart by her affection, “my good Ellinor, I hope you will live many a happy year; and if I can contribute—”

“And himself to speak to me so kind before them all!” interrupted she. “Oh! this is too much—quite too much!” She burst into tears; and, hiding her face with her arm, made her way out of the hall.

The flights of stairs which I had to ascend, and the length of galleries through which I was conducted, before I reached the apartment where supper was served, gave me a vast idea of the extent of my castle; but I was too much fatigued to enjoy fully the gratifications of pride. To the simple pleasures of appetite I was more sensible: I ate heartily of one of the most profusely hospitable suppers that ever was prepared for a noble baron, even in the days when oxen were roasted whole. Then I grew so sleepy, that I was impatient to be shown to my bed. I was ushered through another suite of chambers and galleries; and, as I was traversing one of these, a door of some strange dormitory opened, and a group of female heads were thrust out, in the midst of which I could distinguish old Ellinor’s face; but, as I turned my head, the door closed so quickly, that I had no time to speak: I only heard the words, “Blessings on him! that’s he!”

I was so sleepy, that I rejoiced having escaped an occasion where I might have been called upon to speak, yet I was really grateful to my poor nurse for her blessing. The state tower, in which, after reiterated entreaties, I was at last left alone to repose, was hung with magnificent, but ancient tapestry. It was so like a room in a haunted castle, that if I had not been too much fatigued to think of any thing, I should certainly have thought of Mrs. Radcliffe. I am sorry to say that I have no mysteries, or even portentous omens, to record of this night; for the moment that I lay down in my antiquated bed, I fell into a profound sleep.