I 'm sorry I suffered my feelings to get the better—perhaps I ought to say the worse—of me. Now that it's all over, it were better that I had not knocked down the turnkey, and kicked Vanhoegen out of my cell. It would have been both more discreet and more decorous, to have submitted patiently. I know it's what you would have done, Tom, and trusted to your action for damages to indemnify you; but I'm hasty, that's the fact; and if I wanted to deny it, the state of the jailer's nose, and my own sprained thumb, would give evidence against me. But are there no allowances to be made for the provocation? Perhaps not for a simple assault; but if I had killed the turnkey, I'm certain the jury would discover the "circonstances atténuantes."
Partly out of respect to my own feelings, partly out of regard to yours, I have not put the words "Petits Carmes" at the top of this letter; but truth will out, Tom, and the real fact is that I date the present from cell No. 65, in the common prison of Brussels! Is not that a pretty confession? Is not that a new episode in this Iliad of enjoyment, cultivation, and Heaven knows what besides, that Mrs. D. projected by our tour on the Continent? But I swear to you, solemnly, as I write this, that, if I live to get back, I'll expose the whole system of foreign travel. I don't think I could write a book, and it's hard nowadays to find a chap to put down one's own sentiments fairly and honestly, neither overlaying them with bits of poetry, nor explaining them away by any garbage of his own; so that, maybe, I'll not be able to come out hot-pressed and lettered; but if the worst comes to it, I 'll go about the country giving lectures. I 'll hire an organ-man to play at intervals, and I 'll advertise, "Kenny Dodd on Men and Manners abroad—Evenings with Frenchmen, and Nights with Distinguished Belgians." I'll show up their cookery, their morals, their modesty, their sense of truth, and their notions of justice. And though I well know that I 'll expose myself to the everlasting hate of a legion of hairdressers, dancing-masters, and white-mice men, I'll do it as sure as I live. I have heard you and Peter Belton wax warm and eloquent about the disgrace to our laws in permitting every kind of quackery to prevail unhindered; but what quackery was ever the equal to this taste for the Continent? If people ate Morison's pills like green peas, they would n't do themselves as much moral injury as by a month abroad! And if I were called before a committee of the House to declare, on my conscience, what I deemed the most pernicious reading of the day, I 'd say—Murray's Handbooks! I give you this under my hand and seal. That fellow—Murray, I mean—has got up a kind of Pictorial Europe of his own, with bits of antiquarianism, history, poetry, and architecture, that serves to convince our vulgar, vagabondizing English that they are doing a refined thing in coming abroad. He half persuades them that it is not for cheap champagne and red partridges they 're come, but to see the Cathedral of Cologne and the Dome of St. Peter's, till he breeds up a race of conceited, ill-informed, prating coxcombs, that disgrace us abroad and disgust us at home.
I think I see your face now, and I half hear you mutter, "Kenny's in one of his fits of passion;" and you'd be right, too, for I have just upset my ink-bottle over the table, and there's scarcely enough left to finish this scrawl, as I must reserve a little for a few lines to Mrs. D. Apropos to that same, Tom, I don't know how to break it to her that I'm in a jail, for her feelings will be terribly shocked at first; not but, between you and me, before a year's over, she 'll make it a bitter taunt to me whenever we have a flare-up, and remind me that, for all my justiceship of the peace, I was treated like a common felon in Brussels!
I believe that the best thing I can do is to send for Jellicot, since Vanhoegen and Draek have sent to say that they retire from my cause, "reserving to themselves all liberty of future action as regards the injury personally sustained;" which means that they require ten pounds for the kicking. Be it so!
When I have seen Jellicot, I 'll give you the result of the interview, that is, if there be any result; but my friend J. is a lawyer of the lawyers, and it is not only that he keeps his right hand on terms of distance with his left, but I don't believe that the thumb and the forefinger of the same side are ever acquainted. He is very much that stamp of man your English Protestants call a Jesuit. God help them, little they know what a real Jesuit is!
It's now a quarter to two in the morning, and I sit down to finish this with a heavy heart, and certainly no inclination for sleep. I don't know where to begin, nor how to tell you, what has happened; but the short of it is, Tom, I'm half ruined. Jellicot has been here for hours and gone over the whole case; he received the papers from D. and V.; and, indeed, everything considered, he has done the thing kindly and feelingly. I 'm sure my head would n't stand the task of telling you all the circumstances; the matter resolves itself simply into this: The "affaire de Dodd fils," instead of being James's duel, as I thought, is a series of actions against him for debt, amounting to upwards of two thousand pounds sterling! There is not an extravagance, from the ballet to the betting-book, that he has not tasted; and saddle-horses, suppers, velvet waistcoats, jewelry, and gimcracks are at this moment dancing an infernal reel through my poor brain.
He has contrived, in less than three months, to condense and concentrate wickedness enough for a lifetime; this is technically called "going fast." Egad, I should say it's a pace far too quick to last with any man, much less with the son of a broken-down Irish gentleman! You would not believe that the boy could know the very names of the things that he appears to have reckoned as mere necessaries of daily life; and how he contrived to raise money and contract loans—a thing that has been a difficulty to myself all my life long—is clean beyond me to explain. I 'll get a copy of the "claims" and send it over to you, and I feel that your astonishment will equal my own. It would appear that the young vagabond talked as if the Barings were his next of kin, and actually took delight in squandering money! Only think! all the time I believed he was hard at work at his French lessons, it was rattling a dice-box he was, and his education for the Board of Trade was going on in the side-scenes of the opera! Vickars has been the cause of all this. If he 'd have kept his promise, the boy wonld n't have been rained with rascally companions and spendthrift associates.
Where's the money to come from, Tom? Have you any device in your head to get us out of this scrape? I suppose some, at least, of the demands will admit of abatement, and Lazarus, they say, always takes a fourth of his claim. You can estimate the pleasant game of cross-purposes I was playing all yesterday with the Court of Cassation, and what a chaotic mass of rubbish the field of Waterloo and the duel must have appeared in an action for debt! But why did n't they apprise me of what I was there for? Why did they go on with their ridiculous demand, "Racontez l'affaire"? Recount what? What should I know of the nefarious dealings of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? They torment me for six weeks by a daily examination, till it would be nothing singular if I became monomaniac, and could discuss no other theme than a duel and a gunshot wound, and then, without the slightest suggestion of a change, they launch me into a thing like a Court of Bankruptcy!
It appears that I have been committed for three days for my "contempt," and before that time elapses, there is no 'resource in Belgian law to compel them to bring up the body of Kenny Dodd; so that here I must stay, "chewing," as the poet says, "the cud of sweet and bitter fancy." Not that I have not a great deal of business to transact in this interval. Jellicot's papers would fill a cart; besides which, I have in contemplation a letter for Mrs. D. that will, I suspect, astonish her. I mean briefly, but clearly, to place before her the state we are in, and her own share in bringing us to it. I'll let her feel that her own extravagance has given the key-note to the family, and that she alone is to blame for this calamity. Among the many fine things promised me for coming abroad, she forgot to say that I was to be like Silvio Pellico; but I 'll not forget it, Tom!
Then, I have an epistle special for James. He shall feel that he has a share in the general ruin; for I will write to Vickars, and ask for a commission for him in a black regiment, or an appointment in the Cape Mounted Rifles,—what old Burrowes used to call the Blessed Army of Martyrs. I don't care a jot where he goes! But he 'll find it hard to give suppers at four pound a head in the Gambia, and ballet-dancers will scarcely be costly acquaintances on the banks of the Niger! And lastly, I mean to threaten a return to Ireland! "Only threaten," you say: "why not do it in earnest?" As I told you before, I'm not equal to it! I 've pluck for anything that can be done by one effort, but I have not strength for a prolonged conflict. I could better jump off the Tarpeian rock than I could descend a rugged mountain! Mrs. D. knows this so well that whenever I show fight, she lays down her parallels so quietly, and prepares for a siege with such deliberation, that I always surrender before she brings up her heavy guns. Don't prate to me of pusillanimity and cowardice! Nobody is brave with his wife. From the Queen of Sheba down to the Duchess of Marlborough, ay, and to our own days, if I liked to quote instances, history teaches the same lesson. What chance have you with one that has been studying every weak point, and every frailty of your disposition, for, maybe, twenty years? Why, you might as well box with your doctor, who knows where to plant the blow that will be the death of you.
I have another "dodge," too, Tom,—don't object to the phrase, for it's quite parliamentary; see Bernai Osborne, passim. I 'll tell Mrs. D. that I 'll put an advertisement in "Galignani," cautioning the public against giving credit to her, or her son, or her daughters; that the Dodd family is come abroad especially for economy, and has neither pretension to affluence, nor any claim to be thought rich. If that won't frighten her, my name is not Kenny! The fact is, Tom, I intend to pursue a very brave line of action for the three days I'm "in," since she cannot have access to me without my own request. You understand me.
I cannot bring my mind to answer your questions about Dodsborough; my poor head is too full of its own troubles. They 've just brought me my breakfast,—prison fare,—for in my indignation I have refused all other. Little I used to think, while tasting the jail diet at home, as one of the visitors, that I'd ever be reduced to eating it on less experimental grounds!
I must reserve all my directions about home affairs for my next; but bestir yourself to raise this money for us. Without some sort of a compromise we cannot leave this; and I am as anxious to "evacuate Flanders" as ever was Uncle Toby! Captain Morris told me, the other day, of a little town in Germany where there are no English, and where everything can be had for a song. The cheapness and the isolation would both be very advisable just now. I 'll get the name of it before I write next.
By the way, Morris is a better fellow than I used to think him: a little priggish or so, but good-hearted at bottom, and honest as the sun. I think he has an eye on Mary Anne. Not that at present he 'd have much chance in that quarter. These foreign counts and barons give a false glitter to society that throws into the shade all untitled gentility; and your mere country gentleman beside them is like your mother's old silver teapot on a table with a show specimen of Elkington's new galvanic plate. Not but if you wanted to raise a trifle of money on either, the choice would be very difficult.
I 'll keep anything more for another letter, and now sign myself
Your old and attached friend,
Kenny I. Dodd. Petits Cabmes, Brussels, Tuesday Morning.
Dear Molly,—The blessed Saints only can tell what sufferings I have gone through the last two days, and it's more than I 'm equal to, to say how it happened! The whole family has been turned topsy and turvy, and there's not one of us is n't upside down; and for one like me, that loves to live in peace and enmity with all mankind, this is a sore trial!
Many 's the time you heard me remark that if it was n't for K. I.'s temper, and the violence of his passion, that we 'd be rich and well off this day. Time, they say, cures many an evil; but I 'll tell you one, Molly, that it never improves, and that is a man's wilful nature; on the contrary, they only get more stubborn and cross-grained, and I often think to myself, what a blessed time one of the young creatures must have had of it, married to some patriarch in the Old Testament; and then I reflect on my own condition,—not that Kenny Dodd is like anything in the Bible! And now to tell you, if I 'm able, some of my distresses.
You have heard about poor dear James, and how he was shot; but you don't know that these last six weeks he has never been off his back, with three doctors, and sometimes five-and-thirty leeches on him; and what with the torturing him with new-fashioned instruments, and continued "repletion," as they call it,—if it had n't been for strong wine-gruel that I gave him, at times, "unknownst,"—my sure belief is that he would n't have been spared to us. This has been a terrible blow, Molly; but the ways of Providence is unscrupulous, and we must submit.
Here it is, then. James, like every boy, spent a little more money than he had, and knowing well his father's temper, he went to the Jews to help him. They smarted the poor dear child, who, in his innocent heart, knew nothing of the world and its wicked ways. They made him take all kinds of things instead of cash,—Dutch tiles, paving-stones, an altar-piece, and a set of surveying-tools, amongst the rest; and these he had to sell again to raise a trifle of cash. Some of them he disposed of mighty well,—particularly the altar-piece,—but on others he lost a good deal, and, at the end, was a heavy balance in debt. If it had n't been for the duel, however, he says he 'd have no trouble at all in "carrying on,"—that's his own word, and I suppose alludes to the business. Be that as it may, his wound was his ruin. Nobody knew how to manage his affairs but himself. It was the very same way with my grandfather, Maurice Lynch McCarthy; for when he died there wasn't a soul left could make anything of his papers. There was large sums in them,—thousands and thousands of pounds mentioned,—but where they were, and what's become of them, we never discovered.
And so with James. There he was, stretched on his bed, while villains and schemers were working his ruin! The business came into the courts here, which, from all I can learn, Molly, are not a bit better than at home with ourselves. Indeed, I believe, wherever one goes, lawyers is just the same for roguery and rampacity. To be sure, it 's comfort to think that you can have another, to the full as bad as the one against you; and if there is any abuse or bad language going, you can give it as hot as you get it; that's equal justice, Molly, and one of the proudest boasts of the British constitution! And you 'd suppose that K. I., sitting on the bench for nigh four-and-twenty years, would know that as well as anybody. Yet what does he do?—you 'll not believe me when I tell you! Instead of paying one of these creatures to go in and torment the others, to pick holes in all he said, and get fellows to swear against them, he must stand out, forsooth, and be his own lawyer! And a blessed business he made of it! A reasonable man would explain to the judges how it all was,—that James was a child; that it was the other day only he was flying a kite on the lawn at home; that he knew as much about wickedness as K. I. did of paradise; that the villains that led him on ought to be publicly whipped! Faith, I can fancy, Molly, it was a beautiful field for any man to display every commotion of the heart; but what does he do? He gets up on his legs,—I did n't see, but I 'm told it,—he gets up on his legs and begins to ballyrag and blackguard all the courts of justice, and the judges, and the attorneys, down to the criers,—he spares nobody! There is nothing too dreadful for him to say, and no words too bad to express it in; till, their patience being all run out, they stop him at last, and give orders to have him taken from the spot, and thrown into a dungeon of the town jail,—a terrible old place, Molly, that goes by the name of the "Petit Carême!" and where they say the diet is only a thin sheet of paper above starving.
And there he is now, Molly; and you may picture to yourself, as the poet says, "what frame he's in"! The news reached me when we were going to the play. I was under the hands of the hairdresser, and I gave such a screech that he jumped back, and burned himself over the mouth with the curling-irons. Even that was a relief to me, Molly; for Mary Anne and myself laughed till we cried again!
I was for keeping the thing all snug and to ourselves about K. I.; but Mary Anne said we should consult Lord George, that was then in the house, and going with us to the theatre. They are a wonderful people, the great English aristocracy; and if it's anything more than another distinguishes them, 't is the indifference to every kind and description of misfortune. I say this, because, the moment Lord George heard the story, he lay down on the sofa, and laughed and roared till I thought he 'd split his sides. His only regret was that he had n't been there, in the courts, to see it all. As for James's share of the trouble, he said it "didn't signify a rush!"
He made the same remark I did myself,—that James was the same as an infant, and could, consequently, know nothing of the world and its pompous vanities.
"I 'll tell you how to manage it all," said he, "and how you 'll not only escape all gossip, but actually refute even the slightest scandal that may get abroad. Say, first of all, that Mr. Dodd is gone over to England—we 'll put it in the 'Galignani'—to attend his Parliamentary duties. The Belgian papers will copy it at once. This being done, issue invitations for an evening at home, 'tea and dance,'—that's the way to do it. Say that the governor hates a ball, and that you are just taking the occasion of his absence to see your friends without disturbing him. The people that will come to you won't be too critical about the facts. Believe me, the gay company will be the very last to inquire where is the head of the house. I 'll take care that you 'll have everybody worth having in Brussels, and with Latour's band, and the supper by Dubos, I 'd like to see who 'll have a spare thought for Mr. Dodd the absent."
I own to you, Molly, the counsel shocked my feelings at first, and I asked my heart, "What will the world say, if it ever comes out that we had our house full of company, and the height of gayety going on, when the head of the family was, maybe, in chains in a dungeon?" "Don't you perceive," says Lord G., "that what I 'm advising will just prevent the possibility of all that,—that you are actually rescuing your family, by a master-stroke, from the evil consequences of Mr. D.'s rashness? As to the boldness of the policy," added he, "that is the only merit it possesses." And then he said something about the firing at St. Sebastian above somebody's head, that I didn't quite lightly understand. The upshot was, Molly, I was convinced, not, you may be sure, that I felt any pleasure or gratification in the prospect of a ball under such trying circumstances, but just as Lord G. said, I felt I was "rescuing the family."
When we came home, from the play,—for we went with heavy hearts, I assure you, though we afterwards laughed a great deal,—we set about writing the invitations for "Our Evening;" and although James and Mary Anne assisted Lord G., it was nigh daybreak when we were done. You 'll ask, where was Caroline? And you might well ask; but as long as I live I 'll never forget her unnatural conduct! It is n't that she opposed everything about the ball, but she had the impudence to say to my face "that hitherto we had been only ridiculous, but that this act would be one of downright shame and disgrace." Her language to Lord George was even worse, for she told him that his "counsel was a very sorry requital for the generous hospitality her father had always extended to him." Where the hussey got the words so glibly, I can't imagine; but she, that rarely speaks at all, talked away with the fluency of a lawyer. As to helping us to address the notes, she vowed she 'd rather cut her fingers off; and what made this worse was, that she's the only one of them knows the genders in French, and whether a soirée is a man or a woman!
You may imagine the trouble of the next day; for in order to have the ball come off before K. I. was out, we were only able to give two days' notice. Little the people that come to your house to dance or to sup know or think what a deal of trouble—not to say more—it costs to give a ball. Lord George tells me that even the Queen herself always gives it in another house, so she 's not put out of her way with the preparations,—and, to be sure, what is more natural?—and that she would n't like to be exposed to the turmoil of taking down beds, hanging lustres, fixing sconces, raising a platform for the music, and settling tables for the supper. I 'm sure and certain, if she only knew what it was to pass such a day as yesterday was with me, she 'd never have a larger party than that lord that's always in waiting, and the ladies of the bedroom! As for regular meals, Molly, we had none. There was a ham and cold chickens in the lobby, and a veal pie and some sherry on the back stairs; and that's the way we breakfasted, dined, and supped. To be sure, we laughed heartily all the time, and I never saw Mary Anne in such spirits. Lord George was greatly struck with her,—I saw it by his manner,—and I would n't be a bit surprised if something came of it yet!
I have little time to say more now, for I 'm called down to see the flowerpots and orange-trees that's to line the hall and the stairs; but I 'll try and finish this by post hour.
As I see that this cannot be despatched to-day, I 'll keep it over, to give you a "full and true" account of the ball, which Lord George assures me will be the greatest fête Brussels has seen this winter; and, indeed, if I am to judge from the preparations, I can well believe him! There are seven men cooks in the kitchen making paste and drinking sherry in a way that's quite incredible, not to speak of an elderly man in my own room that's doing the M'Carthy arms in spun-sugar for a temple that is to represent Dodsborough, in the middle of the table, with K. I. on the top of it, holding a flag, and crying out something in French that means welcome to the company. Poor K. I., 'tis something else he's thinking of all the time!
Then, the whole stairs and the landing is all one bower of camellias and roses and lilies of the valley, brought all the way from Holland for another ball, but, by Lord George's ingenuity, obtained by us. As for ice, Molly, you 'd think my dressing-room was a Panorama of the North Pole; and there's every beast of that region done in strawberries or lemon, with native creatures, the color of life, in coffee or chocolate. The music will be the great German Brass Band, fifty-eight performers, and two Blacks with cymbals. They 're practising now, and the noise is dreadful! Carts are coming in every moment with various kinds of eatables, for I must tell you, Molly, they don't do things here the way we used at Dodsborough. Plenty of cold roast chickens, tongues, and sliced ham, apple-pies, tarts, jelly, and Spanish flummery, with Naples biscuits and a plum-cake, is a fine supper in Ireland; and if you begin with sherry, you can always finish with punch: but here there's nothing that ever was eaten they won't have. Ice when they 're hot, soup when they 're chilly, oyster patties and champagne continually during the dancing, and every delicacy under the sun afterwards on the supper-table.
There's nothing distresses me in it all but the Polka, Molly. I can't learn it. I always slide when I ought to hop, and where there 's a hop I duck down in spite of me! And whether it's the native purity of an Irishwoman, or that I never was reared to it, I can't say; but the notion of a man's arm round me keeps me in a flutter, and I 'm always looking about to see how K. I. bears it. I suppose, however, I 'll get through it well enough, for Lord George is to be my partner; and as I know K. I.'s "safe," my mind is more easy.
Perhaps it's the shortness of the invitation, but there's a great many apologies coming in. The English Ambassador won't come. Lord G. says it's all the better, for the Tories are going out, and it will be a great service to K. I. with the Whigs if it's thought he did n't invite him! This may be true, but it's no reason in life for the Austrian, the French, the Prussian, and the Spanish Ministers sending excuses. Lord George, however, thinks it's the terrible state of the Continent explains it all, and the Despotic Powers are so angry with Lord Dudley Stuart and Roebuck that they like to insult the English! If it be so, they haven't common-sense. Kenny James has taken a turn with all their parties, and much good it has done him!
Lord G. and Mary Anne are in high spirits, notwithstanding these disappointments, for "the Margravine" is coming,—at least, so he tells me; but whether the Margravine be a man or woman, Molly, or only something to eat, I don't rightly know, and I 'm ashamed to ask.
I have just been greatly provoked by a visit from Captain Morris, who called twice this morning, and at last insisted on seeing me. He came to entreat me, he says, "if not to abandon, at least to put off, our ball till Mr. Dodd's return." I tried to browbeat him, Molly, for his impertinent interference, but it would n't do; and he showed me that he knew perfectly well where K. I. was,—a piece of information that, of course, he obtained from Caroline. Oh, Molly dear, when one's own flesh and blood turns against them,—when children forget all the lessons you 've been teaching them from infancy,—it's a sore, sore trial! Not but I have reason to be thankful. Mary Anne and James are like part of myself; nothing mean or little-minded about them, but fine, generous, confiding creatures,—happy for to-day, hopeful for to-morrow!
When I mentioned to Lord G. what Morris came about, he only laughed, and said, "It was a clever dodge of the half-pay,—he wanted an invitation;" and I see now that such must have been his object. The more one sees of mankind, the greater appears their meanness; and in my heart I feel how unsuited guileless, simple-hearted creatures like myself are to combat against the stratagems and ambuscades of this wicked world. Not that little Morris will gain much by his morning's work, for Mary Anne says that Lord George will never suffer him to get on full pay as long as he lives. "A friend in need is a friend indeed," Molly, more particularly when he's a lord.
The Margravine is a princess, Molly. I 've just found it out; for James is to receive her at the foot of the stairs, Mary Anne and myself on the lobby. Lord G. says she must have whist at half-"Nap." points, and always play with her own "Gentleman-in-Waiting." She never goes out on any other conditions. But he says, "She 's cheap even at that price, for an occasion like the present;" and maybe he's right.
No more now, for my gown is come to be tried on.
Dear Molly, I'll try and finish this, since, maybe, it's the last lines you 'll ever receive from your attached friend. Three days have elapsed since I put my hand to paper, and three such days, I 'll be bound, no human creature ever passed. Out of one fit of hysterics into another, and taking the strongest stimulants, with no more effect than if they were water! My screeches, I am told, were dreadful, and there 's scarcely one of the family can't show the mark of my nails; and this is what K. I. has brought me to. You know well what I used to suffer from him at Dodsborough, and the terrible scenes we always had when the Christmas bills came in; but it's all nothing, Molly, to what has happened here. But as my Uncle Joe said, no good ever came out of a "mess-alliance."
My moments are few so I 'll be brief. The ball was beautiful, Molly; there never was the like of it for elegance and splendor! For great names, rank, fashion, beauty, and jewels, it was, they tell me, far beyond the Court, because we had a great many people who, from political reasons, refuse to go to Leopold, but who had no prejudices against your humble servant; for, strange enough, they have Orangemen here as well as in Ireland! Princes, dukes, counts, and generals came pouring in, all shining with stars and crosses, blue and red ribbons, and keys worked on their coat-tails, till nearly twelve o'clock. There were, then, nigh seven hundred souls in the house, eating, dancing, drinking, and enjoying themselves; and a beautiful sight it was: everybody happy, and thinking only of pleasure. Mary Anne looked elegant, and many remarked that we must be sisters. Oh dear, if they only saw me now!
There was a mazurka that lasted till half-past one, for it's a dance that everybody must take out each in turn, and you 'd fancy there was no end to it, for, indeed, they never do seem tired of embracing and holding each other round the waist; but Lord George came to say that the Margravine had finished her whist and wanted her supper, so down we must go at once.
James was to take her Supreme Highness, and the Prince of Dammiseisen—a name that always made me laugh—was to take me; but he is a great man in Germany, and had a kingdom of his own till he was "modified" by Bonaparte, which means, as Lord George says, that "he took it out in money." But why do I dwell on these things? Down we went, Molly,—down the narrow stairs,—for the supper was laid out below; and a terrible crush it was, for, strange as it may seem, your grand people are just as anxious to get good places as any; and I saw a duke fighting his way in, just like old Ted Davis at Dodsborough!
When we came to the last flight of stairs, the crowd was awful, and the banisters creaked, and the wood-work groaned, so that I thought it was going to give way; and instead of James moving on in front, he pressed back upon us, and increased the confusion, for we were forced forward by hundreds behind us.
"What's the matter, James?" said I. "Why don't you goon?"
"I 'd rather be excused," said he. "It 's like Donnybrook Fair, down there,—a regular shindy!"
It was no less, Molly; for although the hall was filled with servants, there were two men armed with sticks, laying about them like mad, and fighting their way towards the supper-room.
"Who are those wretches?" cried I; "why don't they turn them out?"
The words weren't well out, my dear Molly, when the door gave way, and the two, trampling down all before them, passed into the room. From that moment it was crash after crash! Lamps, lustres, china, glass, plates, dishes, fruit, and confectionery flying on all sides! In less time than I 'm writing it, the table was cleared, and of the elegant temple there wasn't a bit standing. I just got inside the door to see the McCarthy arms in smithereens! and K. I.—for it was him!—dancing over them, with that little blackguard Paddy Byrne smashing everything round him! I went off into fits, Molly, and never saw more; and, indeed, I wish with all my heart that I never came to again, if what they tell me be only true. K. I., it seems, no sooner demolished the supper than he set to work on the company. He snatched off the Margravine's wig, and beat her with it, kicking Dammiseisen and two other princes into the street. They say that many of the nobility leaped out of the first-pair windows, and one fat old gentleman, a chamberlain to the King of Bavaria, was caught by a lamp iron, and hung there for twenty minutes, with a mob shouting round him!
This all came of the Belgians letting out K. I. at one o'clock, which, according to their reckoning, was the end of his three days.
I 'm getting another attack, so I must conclude. We left Brussels the next morning, and arrived here the same night. I don't know where we are going, and I don't care. K. I. has never had the face to come near me since his infamous conduct, and I hope, for the little time I may be spared on this side of the grave, not to see him again. Mary Anne is in bed, too, and nearly as bad as myself; and as for Caroline, I wouldn't let her into the room! Lord George took James away to his own lodgings till K. I. learns to behave more like a Christian; but when that may be is utterly beyond
Your afflicted and disgraced friend,
Jemima Dodd.
Hôtel d'Angleterre, Liège.
Dear Molly, I open this to say that I have made my will; for, if Divine Providence doesn't befriend me, your poor Jemima will be in paradise before this reaches you! I have left you my black satin with the bugles, and my brown bombazine, which, when it is dyed, will be very nice mourning for common wear. I also bequeath to you the things you 'll find in the oak press in my own room, and ten silver spoons, and a fish-knife marked with the McCarthy arms, which, not to be too particular, I have put down in the will as "plate and linen." I leave you, besides, my book of "Domestic Cookery," "The Complete Housewife," and the "Way to Glory," by St. Francis Xavier. There are marks all through them with my own pen; and be particular to observe the receipt for snow pancakes, and the prayers for a "Plenary" after Candlemas.
It will be a comfort to your feelings to know that I am departing from this life in peace and charity with every one. Tell Mat I forgive him the fleece he stole out of the hayloft; and though he swears still he never laid hand on it, who else was there, Molly? You can give Kitty Hogan the old shoes in the closet, for, though she never wears any, she 'd like to have them for keepsakes! K. I. cared too little for my peace here to suppose that he will think of my repose hereafter, so that Father John can take the yearling calf and the two ewes out in masses! My feelings is overcoming me, Molly, and I can't go on!—breathing my last, as I am, in a far-away land, and sinking under the cruelty of a hard-hearted man!
I think it would only be a decent mark of respect to my family if the M'Carthy arms was hung up over the door, to show I was n't a Dodd. The crest is an angel sheltering a fox, or a beast like a fox, under his wing; but you 'll see it on the spoons. When you sell the piggs—maybe I ought n't to put two g's in them, but my head is wandering—pay old Judy Cobb two-and-sevenpence for the yarn, and say that I won't stop the ninepence out of Betty's wages. Maybe, when I 'm gone, they 'll begin to see what they 've lost, and maybe E. I. will feel it too, when he finds no buttons on his shirts and the strings out of his waistcoat; and what's far worse, nobody to contradict him, and control his wilful nature! That's the very struggle that's killing me now! Nobody knows, nor would believe, the opposition I 've given him for twenty years. But he 'll feel it, Molly, and that before I'm six weeks in the grave.
I don't know my age to a day or a month, but you can put me down at thirty-nine, and maybe the "Blast of Freedom" would say a word or two about my family. I 'd like that far better than to be "deeply regretted," or "to the inexpressible grief of her bereaved relations."
I have made it a last request that my remains are to be sent home, and as I know K. I. won't go to the expense, he'll have to bear all the disgrace of neglecting my dying entreaty. That's my legacy to him, Molly; and if it's not a very profitable one, the "duty" will not be heavy.
Remember me affectionately to everybody, and say that to the last my heart was in my own country; and indeed, Molly, I never did hear so much good about Ireland as since we left it!
I have just taken a draught that has restored me wonderfully. It has a taste of curaçoa, and evidently suits my constitution. Maybe Providence, in his mercy, means to reserve me for more trials and misfortunes; for I feel stronger already, and am going to taste a bit of roast duck, with sage and onions. Betty has done it for me herself.
If I do recover, Molly, I promise you K. I. won't find me the poor submissive worm he has been trampling upon these more than twenty years! I feel more like myself already; the "mixture" is really doing me good.
You may write to me to this place, with directions to be opened by Mary Anne, if I 'm no more. The very thought of it overwhelms me. The idea of one's own death is the most terrible of all afflictions; and as for me, I don't think I could ever survive it.
I mean to send for K. I., to take leave of him, and forgive him, before I go. I 'm not sure that I 'd do so, Molly, if it wasn't for the opportunity of telling him my mind about all his cruelty to me, and that I know well what he's at, and that he'll be married again before six months. That's the treachery of men; but there's one comfort,—they are well paid off for it when they marry—as they always do—some young minx of nineteen or twenty. It's exactly what K. I. is capable of; and I mean to show him that I see it, and all the consequences besides.
The mixture is really of service to me, and I feel as if I could take a sleep. Mary Anne will seal this if I 'm not awake before post hour. #
My dear Tom,—Your reproaches are all just, but I really have not had courage to wield a pen these last three weeks, nor have I now patience to go back on the past. Perhaps when we meet—if ever that good time is to come round again—I may be able to tell you something of my final exit from Brussels; but now with the shame yet fresh, and the disgrace recent, I cannot find pluck for it.
Here we are at what they call the "Pavilion," having changed from the Hotel d'Angleterre yesterday. You must know, Tom, that this same city of Liège is the noisiest, most dinning, hammering, hissing, clanking, creaking, welding, smelting, and furnace-roaring town in Europe. Something like a hundred thousand tinkers are at work every day; and from an egg saucepan to a steam-boiler there is something to be hammered at by every capacity!
You would say that tumult like this might satisfy the most craving appetite for uproar; but not so: the Liégeois are regular gluttons for noise, and they insist upon having Verdi's new opera of "Nabuchodonosor" performed at their great theatre. Now, this same theatre is exactly in front of the Hôtel d'Angleterre, so that when, by dint of time, patience, and a partial dulness of the acoustic nerves, we were getting used to steam-factories and shot-foundries, down comes Verdi on us, with a din and clangor to which even the works of Seraing were like an Æolian harp! Now, of all the Pretenders of these days of especial humbug, with our "Long ranges," Morison's pills and Louis Napoleons, I don't think you could show me a greater charlatan than this same Verdi. I don't pretend to know a bit about music; I only knew two tunes all my life, "God save the King" and "Patrick's Day," and these only because we used to stand up and take off our hats to them in the Dublin theatre; but modulated, soft sounds have always had their effect on me, and I never heard a country girl singing as she beetled her linen beside a river's bank, or listened to the deep bay of an old fox-hound of a clear winter's morning, without feeling that there was something inside of me somewhere that responded to the note. But this fellow is all marrow-bones and cleavers! Trumpets, drums, big fiddles, and bassoons are the softest things he knows. I take it as a providential thing that his music cracks every voice after one season; for before long there will be nobody left in Europe to sing him, except it be the steam-whistle of an express-train!
But we live in strange times, Tom, that's the fact. The day was when our operas used to be taken from real life,—or what authors and poets thought was real life. We had the "Maid of the Mill," and the "Duenna," and "Love in a Village," and a score more, pleasant and amusing enough; and except that there was nothing wrong or incomprehensible in them, perhaps they might have stood their ground. There was the great failure, Tom; everybody could understand them, and nobody need be shocked. Now, the taste is, puzzle a great many, and shock every one!
A grand opera now must be from the Old Testament. Not even drums and kettle-drums would save you, if you haven't Moses or Melchisedek to sit down in white raiment, and see some twenty damsels, with petticoats about as long as a lace ruffle, capering and attitudinizing in a way that ought to make even a patriarch blush. Now, this is all wrong, Tom. The public might be amused without profanity, and even the most inveterate lover of dancing needn't ask David and Uriah for a pas de deux. And now, let me remark to you, that a great deal of that so-much-vaunted social liberty abroad is neither more nor less than this same latitude with respect to any and every thing. We at home were bred up to believe that good-breeding mainly consists in a certain reserve,—a cautious deference not alone for the feelings, but even the prejudices of others; that you have no right to offend your neighbor's sense of respect for fifty things that you held cheaply yourself. They reverse all this here. Everybody talks to you of yourself, ay, and of your wife and your mother, as frankly as though they were characters of the heathen mythology: they treat you like a third party in these discussions, and very likely it was a practice of this kind originally suggested the phrase of being "beside oneself."
You'll perhaps remark that my tone is very low and depressed, Tom; and I own to you I feel so. For a man that came abroad to enjoy himself, I am, to say the least, going a mighty strange way about it. The most rigid moralist couldn't accuse me of my epicurism, for I seem to be husbanding my Continental pleasures with a laudable degree of self-denial. Would you like a peep at us? Well, Mrs. D. is over there in No. 19, in bed with fourteen leeches on her temples, and a bottle as big as a black jack of camphor and sal-volatile beside her as a kind of table beverage; Mary Anne and Caroline are somewhere in the dim recesses of the same chamber, silent, if they 're not sobbing; James is under lock and key in No. 17, with Ollendorff's Method, and the Gospel of St. John in French; and here am I, trying to indite a few lines, with blast furnaces and brass instruments baying around me, and Paddy Byrne cleaning knives outside the door!
Mrs. D.'s attack is not serious, but it is very distressing. She has got the notion into her head that foreign apothecaries have a general pardon for poisoning, and so she requires that some of us should always take part of her physic before she touches it. The consequence is that I have been going through a course of treatment that would have pushed an elephant rather hard. I can stand some things pretty well; but what they call réfrigérants, Tom, play the devil with me! and I am driven to brandy and water to an extent that I can scarcely call myself quite sober at any time of the day. Were we at home in Dodsborough, there would be none of this; so that here, again, is another of the blessings of our foreign experiences! Ah, Tom! it's all a mistake from beginning to end. You would n't know your old friend if you saw him; and although they've padded me out, and squeezed me in, I 'm not the man I used to be!
You tell me that I'm not to expect any more money till November; but you forgot to tell me how I 'm to live without it. We compromised with the Jews for fifteen hundred.
Our "extraordinaries," as the officials would call them, amounted to three more; so that, taking all things into account, we have been living since April last at a trifle more than eleven thousand a year. It's a mercy that when they sell a man out by the Encumbered Estates Court, they ask no impertinent questions about how he contracted his debts. I 'd cut a sorry figure under such an examination.
We have begun the economy, Tom, and I hope that even you will be satisfied; for although this place is detestable to me, here I 'll stay, if my hearing can stand it, till winter. Mary Anne says we might as well be in Birmingham, and my reply is, I'm quite ready to go there! I own to you I have a kind of diabolical delight in seeing them all nonplussed. There are neither dukes nor marquises here, neither princesses nor ballet-dancers! The most reckless spendthrift could only ruin himself in steam-boilers, gun-barrels, and kitchen-rauges; there's nothing softer than cast-iron in the whole town.
Our rooms are in the third story. James and I dine at the public table. Our only piece of extravagance is the doctor that attends Mrs. D.; and if you saw him, you 'd scarcely give him the name of a luxury! I needn't say that there is very little pleasure in all this; indeed, for anything I see, I think we might be leading the same kind of life in Kilmainham Jail; and perhaps at last they 'll see this themselves, and consent to return home.
I go out for an hour's walk every day, but it does me little good. My usual stroll is to a shot factory, and back by a patent bolt and rivet establishment; but this avoids the theatre, for I own to you Nabucco, as they call him for shortness, shouts in a manner that makes me quite irritable.
James never leaves his room; he's studying hard at last; and although his health would be the better for a little exercise, I 'll just leave him to himself. It's right he should pay some penalty for his late conduct. As for the girls, Mary Anne is indignant with me, and only comes to say good-morning and good-night; and Cary, though she tries to look cheerful and happy, is evidently fretting in secret. Betty Cobb takes less trouble to repress her feelings, and goes howling about the hotel like a dog run over by the mail, and is always getting accompanied by strange and inquisitive travellers, who insist upon hearing her sorrows, and occasionally push their inquiries even as far as my room!
Paddy Byrne alone appears to have taken a philosophical view of his position, for he has been drunk ever since we arrived. He usually sleeps in the hall, on the stairs, or the lobbies; and although this saves the cost of a bedroom, the economy is counterbalanced by occasional little reprisals he takes, as stray gentlemen stumble over him with their bedroom candles. At such moments he smashes lamps and china ornaments, for which his wages will require a long sequestration to clear off. And now a word about home. Our English tenant, you tell me, is getting tired of Dodsborough; we guessed how it would be already. "He thinks the people lazy"! Ask him, did he ever try to cut turf, with two meals of wet potatoes per diem? "They are bigoted and superstitious too." How much better would they be if they knew all about Lord Rosse's telescope? "They won't give up their old barbarous ways." Is n't that the very boast of the Conservative party? Is n't that what Disraeli is preaching every day and every hour?—"Fall back upon this,—fall back upon that,—think of the spirit of your ancestors." Now they say, our ancestors yoked their horses by the tails to save a harness. It's rather hard that all the "progress," as they call it, must begin with the poor. It's a dead puzzle to me, Tom, to explain one thing. All the moralists, from the earliest ages, keep crying up humility, and telling you that true nobility of soul consists in self-denial and moderation, simple tastes, and so on; and yet, what is the great reproach they bring against Paddy? Is n't it that he is satisfied with the potato? There's the head and front of his offence. That he does n't want beef, like the Englishman,—nor soup and three courses, like "Mounseer"—nor sauerkraut and roast veal, like a German; "cups and cold water" being the food of a fellow that could thrash the whole three of them all round, and think it mighty good fun besides.
Poor Dan used to say that he was the best abused man in Europe: but I 'll tell you that the potato is the best abused vegetable in the universal globe. From the "Times" down to the Scotch farmers, it's one hue-and-cry after it,—"The filthy root"—"The disgusting tuber,"—"The source of all Irish misery,"—"The father of famine, and mother of fever,"—on they go, blackguarding the only food of the people, till at last, as if it were a judgment on their bad tongues, it took to rot in the ground, and left us with nothing to eat. Now, Tom, you know as well as myself, Ireland is not a wheat country; it's one year in three that we can raise a crop of it; for our climate is as treacherous as the English Government. I hope you would n't have us live on oats, like the Scotch; nor on Indian com, like the savages; so what is there like the potato? And then, how easy the culture, and how simple the cookery! It does well in every soil, and agrees well with every constitution. It feeds the peasant, it fattens the pig, it rears the children, and supports the chickens. What can compare with that?
Do you know that there's no cant of the day annoys me more than that cry about model farming, and green crops, and rotations, and subsoiling, and so on. The whole ingenuity of mankind would seem devoted to ascertaining how much a bullock can eat, and how little will feed a laborer. Stuff one and starve the other, and you may be the President of an Agricultural Society, and Chairman of your Union. What treatises we have upon stock, and improving the breed of boars! Will you tell me who ever thought of turning the same attention to the condition of the people? and I'm sure, if you go into the county Galway, you 'll soon acknowledge that they need it. "Look at that lanky pig," calls out the Scotch steward, in derision; "his snout and his legs are fit for a greyhound!" But I say, "Look at Paddy, there. His neck is shrivelled and knotted, like an old vine-tree; his back rounded, and his legs crooked; all for want of care and nourishment. Is all your sympathy to be kept for the sheep, and have you none for the shepherd?"
I made some memorandums for you about Belgian farming, but Mary Anne curled her hair with them. It's no loss to you, however, for their system would n't do with us. Small tenures and spade husbandry do mighty well here, because there are great cities within a few miles of each other, and agriculture takes somewhat the character of market gardening; but their success would be far different were there long distances to be traversed with the produce.
This country is certainly prospering; but I 'm not so certain that it can continue to do so.' Their industry is now stimulated to a high state of productiveness, because they are daily extending their railroads; but there must come an end to that, and it strikes me that a country that only deals with itself is pretty much what the adage says of the "man that is his own doctor." They are now, however, enjoying what your political economists all agree in pronouncing to be the great test of prosperity. Everything has nearly doubled in price: house rent, meat, vegetables, wages, clothes, luxuries of all kind, and, of course, taxation. I own to you I never clearly understood this problem; it always seemed to me as if a whole population took to walk upon stilts, for the pleasure of thinking themselves nine feet high.
These matters put me in mind of Vickars. I now see that I was wrong in not going over to the election. His tone is quite changed, and he writes to me as if I were a deputation from the distressed hand-loom weavers. He acknowledges mine of the 5th ult, and he deplores, and regrets, and feels constrained to remind me, and so on, ending with being "humble and obedient,"—two things that I believe his own mother never found him. The fact is, Tom, he's in Parliament, and he is a Lord of the Treasury, and he does n't care a brass farthing for one of us. Do you remark how the Ministerial papers praise the Government for promoting Irishmen? It is not on the ground of their superior capacity for office, their readiness and natural ability. Nothing of the kind; it is simply the unbounded generosity of the administration, and perhaps as a proof of their humility! They put an Irishman in the Cabinet, just as the Roman Conqueror took a slave in his chariot, to show that they don't intend to forget themselves!
I wish "Punch" would make a picture of it. Pat with his pipe in his mouth beside the Premier; the roguish leer of the eye, the careless ease of his crossed legs, and smallclothes open at the knee, would be a grand contrast to the high-bred air of his companion.
Don't bother me any more about the salmon weirs; make the best bargain you can, and I 'll be satisfied. It appears to me, however, the more laws we have, the less fish we catch. In my father's time there was no legislation at all, and salmon was a penny a pound. The fish seem to hate Acts of Parliament just as much as ourselves. And, talking of that, I 'm glad we 're out of our scrape with the Yankees.
Depend upon it, all the cod that ever was salted would n't pay for one collision. It would n't be like any other war, Tom, for French and Russians, Austrians and Italians, have each their separate peculiarities,—giving certain advantages in certain situations; but we—that is, English and Americans—fight exactly in the same way. Each knows every dodge of the other,—long sixty-fives and thirty-twos, boarders, riflemen, riggers,—all alike. It 's the old story of the Kilkenny cats, and I'm greatly afraid our "tail" would be nearly as much mauled as Jonathan's.
The longer I live, the nearer I find myself drawing to these Yankees; and I 've some notion of going over there to have a look at them. They tell me that the worst thing about them is the air of gravity, even of depression, that prevails,—a strange fault, considering how many Irish there are amongst them; but I suppose Paddy is like the rest of the world, and he loses his fun when he gets prosperous. There was Tom Martin, that went our circuit, and there was n't as pleasant a fellow at the bar till he got into business. There was no good asking him to dinner after that; as he owned himself, "he kept his jokes for his clients." Now, there may be something like this the case in America; at all events, Tom, I 'd have one advantage there,—I 'd know the language, what I 'm never likely to do here; not but I'm doing my best every day at the table d'hôte; occasionally, perhaps, with some sacrifice of the "propers;" but as a foreigner is too polite to laugh, the stranger has little chance to learn. For my own part, I 'd rather they 'd tell me when I was wrong, and give me some hope of going right I 'd think it more friendly of a man to say, "Kenny Dodd, you 're going into a hole," than if he smiled and simpered, and assured me that I was in the middle of the path, and getting on beautifully.
And there isn't any good-nature in it; not a bit. It's not good-heartedness, nor kindness, nor amiability. I don't believe a word of it; because the chap that does it isn't thinking of you at all,—he 's only minding himself; he 's fancying how he 's delighting you, or captivating your wife or your sister-in-law; or, if it's a woman, she wants to fascinate or make a fool of you.
The real and essential difference between us and all foreigners is that they are always thinking of what effect they are producing; they never for a single moment forget that there is an audience. Now we, on the contrary, never remember it. Life with them is a drama, in all the blaze of wax-lights and a crowded house; with us, it's a day-rehearsal, and we slip about, mumbling our parts, getting through the performance, unmindful of all but our own share in it.
More than half of what is attributed to rudeness and unsociality in us, springs out of the simple fact that we do not care to obtrude even our politeness when there seems no need of it. Our civilities are like a bill of exchange, that must represent value one day or other. Theirs are like the gilt markers on a card-table: they have a look of money about them, but are only counterfeit. Perhaps this may explain why our women like the Continent so much better than ourselves. All this mock interchange of courtesy amuses and interests them; it only worries us.
To come back to Vickars. He 'll do nothing for James. His "own list is quite full;" he "has mentioned his name," he says, "to the Secretary for the Colonies," and will speak of him "at the Home Office." But I know what that means. The party is safe for the present, and don't need our dirty voices for many a day to come. It's distressing me to find out what to do with him. Can you get me any real information about the gold diggings? Is it a thing that would suit him? His mother, I know well, would never consent to the notion of his working with his hands; but, upon my conscience, if it's his head he's to depend on, he'll fare worse! He is very good-looking, six foot one and a half, strong as a young bull; and to ride an unbroken horse, drive a fresh team, to shoot a snipe, or book a salmon, I 'll back him against the field. I hear, besides, he 's a beautiful cue at billiards. But what's the use of all these at the Board of Trade, if he had even the luck to get there? Many 's the time I 've heard poor old Lord Kilmahon say that an Irish education was n't worth a groat for England; and I now see the force of the remark.
Not but he 's working hard every day, with French and fortification and military surveying, with a fine old officer that served in the wars of the Empire,—Captain de la Bourdonaye,—a regular old soldier of Bony's day, that hates the English as much as any Irishman going. He comes and sits with me now and then of an evening, but there 's not much society in it, since we can't understand each other. We have a bottle of rum and some cigars between us, and our conversation goes on somewhat in this fashion:—
"Help yourself, Mounseer."
A grin and bow, and something mumbled between his teeth.
"Take a weed?"
We smoke.
"James is getting on well, I hope? Mon fils James improving, eh? Grand general one of these days, eh?"
"Oui, oui." Fills and drinks.
"Another Bonaparte, I suppose?"
"Ah! le grand homme" Wipes his eyes, and looks up to the ceiling.
"Well, we thrashed him for all that! Faith, we made him dance in Spain and Portugal. What do you say to Talavera and Vittoria?"
Swears like a trooper, and rattles out whole volumes of French, with gestures that are all but blows. I wait till it 's over, and just say "Waterloo!"
This nearly drives him crazy, and he forgets to put water in his glass; and off he goes about Waterloo in a way that's dreadful to look at. I suppose, if I understood him, I 'd break his neck; but as I don't, I only go on saying "Waterloo" at intervals; but every time I utter it, he has to blow off the steam again. When the rum is finished, he usually rushes out of the room, gnashing his teeth, and screaming something about St. Helena. But it 's all over the next day, and he 's as polite as ever when we meet,—grins, and hands me his tin snuff-box with the air of an emperor. They 're a wonderful people, Tom; and though they 'd murder you, they 'd never forget to make a bow to your corpse.
You may imagine, from what I tell you, that I am very lonely here; and so I am. I never meet anybody I can speak to; I never see any newspaper I can read! I eat things without knowing the names of them, or, what's worse, what they are; and all this I must do for economy, while I could live for less than one-half the expense at Dodsburough!
Mary Anne has just come to say that the doctors are agreed Mrs. D. must be removed; the noise of the town will destroy her. My only surprise is that she did n't discover it sooner. They speak of a place called Chaude Fontaine, seven miles away, and of a little watering-place called Spa. But I 'll not budge an inch till I have all the particulars, for I know well they 're all dying to be at the old work again,—tea-parties, and hired horses, and polkas, in the evening, and the rest of it. Lord George has arrived at Liège, and I would n't be astonished if he was at the bottom of it all; not but he behaved well in James's business. To deal with a Jew there 's nothing in the world like one of your young sprigs of nobility! Moses does n't care a bulrush for you or me; but when he hears of a Lord Charles or Lord Augustus, he alters his tone. It is that class which supplies his customers, and he dares not outrage them.
I wish you saw the way he managed our friend Lazarus! He would n't look into his statement, read one of his accounts, or even bestow a glance at the bills.
"I 'm up to all those dodges, Lazzy," said he; "it's no use coming that over me. What 'll you do it for?"
"Ah, my good Lord Shorge, you know better as me, that we cannot give away our moneys. Here are all the bills—"
"Don't care for that, Lazzy,—won't look at 'em. What 'll you do it for?"
"If I lend my moneys at a fair per shent—"
"Well, what's the figure to be? Say it at once, or I'm off."
"You 'll shurely look at my claims—"
"Not one of them."
"Nor the bills."
"No."
"Nor the vouchers?"
"No."
"Oh dear! oh dear! how hard you are grown; and you so young and so handsome, so little like—"
"Never mind the resemblance, but answer me. How much?"
"It 's impossible, my Lord Shorge!" "Will two hundred do? Well, two fifty?" "No, nor twelve fifty, my Lord. I will have my claim." "That 's what I want to come at, Lazzy. How much?" This process goes on for half an hour, without any apparent result on either side; when, at last, Lord George, taking out his pocket-book, proceeds to count various bank-notes on the table. The effect is magical; the sight of the money melts Lazarus,—he hesitates, and gives in. Of course his compliance does not cost him much; fifty per cent is the very lowest we escape for! But even at this, Tom, our bargain is a good one.
I see it all, Tom; they are bent on getting to a watering-place, and that's exactly the very thing I won't stand. Our Irish notions on these subjects are all taken from Bundoran, or Kilkee, or Dunmore, or some such localities; and where, to say the least, there is not a great deal to find fault with. Tiresome they are enough; and, after a week or so, one gets wearied of always walking over ankles in deep sand, listening to the plash of the tide, or the less musical squall of some half-drowned baby, or sitting on a rock to watch some miraculous draught of fishes, that is sure to be sent off some twenty miles into the interior. These, and occasional pictorial studies of your acquaintances, in all the fascinations of oil-skin caps and wet drapery, tire at last. But they are cheap pleasures, Tom; and, as the world goes, that is something.
Now, from all I can learn, for I know nothing of them myself, your foreign watering-place is just a big city taking an airing. The self-same habits of dress, late hours, play, dancing, debt, and dissipation; the great difference being that wickedness is cultivated in straw hats and Russia-duck, instead of its more conventional costume of black coat and trousers! From my own brief experience of life, I think a garden by moonlight is just as dangerous as a conservatory with colored lamps; and a polka in public is less perilous than a mountain excursion, even on donkeys! They 'll not catch me at that game, Tom!
I have just discovered in "Cochrane's Guide"—for I have burned my "John Murray"—the very place to suit me,—Bonn on the Rhine. He says it has a pleasant appearance, and contains 1,300 houses and 15,000 inhabitants, and that the Star, kept by one Schmidt, is reasonable, and that he speaks English, and takes in the "Galignani,"—two evidences of civilization not to be despised.
I think I see you smile; but that's the fact,—we come abroad to hunt after somebody we can talk to, or find a newspaper we can read, making actual luxuries of what we had every day at home for nothing.
Besides these, Bonn has a university, and that will be a great thing for James, and masters of various kinds for the girls; but, better than all this, there's no society, no balls, no dinners, no theatre. The only places of public amusement are the Cathedral and the Anatomy House; and even Mrs. D. will be puzzled to get up a jinketing in them.
I 'll write to Schmidt this evening about rooms, and I 'll show him that we are not to be "done," like your newly arrived Bulls; for I won't pay more than "four-and-six" a head for dinner; and plenty it is too. I wish we could have remained here; but now that the doctors have decided against it, there's no help. It is not that I liked the place,—Heaven knows I have no right to be pleased with it,—but I 'll tell you one great advantage about it: it was actually "breaking them all in to hate the Continent;" another month of this tinkering din, this tiresome table d'hote, and wearisome existence, and I 'd wager a trifle they 'd agree to any terms to get away. You 'd not believe your eyes if you saw how they are altered. The girls so thin, and no color in their cheeks; James as lank as a greyhound, and always as if half asleep; and myself, pluffy and full and short-winded, irascible about everything, and always thirsty, without anything wholesome to drink. But I 'd bear it all, Tom, for the result, or for what I at least expect the result would be. I 'd submit to it like a course of physic, looking to the cure for my recompense.
Shall I now tell you, Tom, that I have my misgivings about Mrs. D.'s illness? I was passing the lobby last night, and I heard her laughing as heartily as ever she did in her life, though it was only two hours before she had sent down for the man of the house to witness her will. To be sure, she always does make a will whenever she takes to bed; but this time she went further, and had a grand leave-taking of us all, which I only escaped by being wrapped up in blankets, under the "influence," as the doctors call it, of "tartarized antimony," of which I partook, to satisfy her scruples, before she would taste it. If I have to perform much longer as a pilot balloon, Tom, I 'm thinking I 'm very likely to explode.
As for one word of truth from the doctors, I 'm not such a fool as to expect it. The priest or the physician that attends your wife always seems to regard you as a natural enemy. If he happen to be well bred, he conducts himself with all the observance due to a distinguished opponent; but no confidence, Tom,—nothing candid. He never forgets that he is engaged for the "opposite party."
Your foreign doctor, too, is a dreadful animal. He has not the bland look, the soft smile, the noiseless slide, the snowy shirt-frill, and the tender squeeze of the hand, of our own fellows, every syllable of whose honeyed lips seems like a lenitive electuary made vocal. He is a mean, scrubby, little, damp-looking chap, not unlike the bit of dirty cotton in the bottom of an ink-bottle, the incarnation of black draught and a bitter mixture. He won't poison you, however, for his treatment ranges between dill-water and syrup of gum; in fact, to use the expressive phrase of the French, he only comes to "assist" at your death, and not to cause it. I have remarked that homoopathic fellows are more attentive to the outward man than the others, whatever be the reason. Their beards and whiskers are certainly not cut on the infinitesimal principle, and, assuredly, flattery is one of the medicaments they never administer in small doses. By the way, Tom, I wish this same theory could be applied to the distresses of a man's estate as well as that of his body. It would be a right comfortable thing to pay off one's mortgagees with fractional parts of a halfpenny, and get rid of one's creditors on the "decillionth" scale.
I have now finished my paper, and I have just discovered that I have not answered one of your questions about home affairs; but, after all, does it matter much, Tom? Things in Ireland go their own way, however we may strive to direct and control them. In fact, I am half disposed to think we ought to manage our business on the principle that our countryman drove his pig,—turning his head towards Cork because he wanted him to go to Fermoy! Look at us at this moment. We never were so thoroughly divided as since we have enjoyed the benefits of a united education!
If Tullylicknaslatterley must be sold, see that it is soon done; for if we put it off till November, the boys will be shooting somebody, or doing some infernal folly or other, that will take five years off the purchase-money. These Manchester fellows are always so terrified at what is called an outrage! Sure, if they had the least knowledge of the doctrine of chances, they 'd see that the estate where a man was shot was exactly the place there would be no more mischief for many a year to come. The only spot where accidents are always recurring is the drop in front of a jail.
Try and persuade the Englishman to take Dodsborough for another year. Tell him Ireland is looking up, prices are improving, &c. If he be Hibernian in his leanings, show him how teachable Paddy is,—how disposed to learn, and how grateful for instruction. If he be bitten by the "Times," tell him that the Irish are all emigrating, and that in three years there will neither be a Pat, a priest, nor a potato to be seen. As old Fitzgibbon used to say on our circuit, "I wish I had a hundred pounds to argue it either way!"
I can manage to keep afloat for a couple of weeks, but be sure to remit me something by that time.
Yours, ever sincerely,
Kenny I. Dodd.