“What a dickens is the man always whimpering about murder for? If business cannot be carried on without it, what would you have a gentleman to do?” Beggars’ Opera.
The scene has changed; and we must request the gentle reader to accompany us into a close dark alley, with no thoroughfare connecting it to the opener streets around, save two narrow and crooked passages scarcely three feet wide. The houses are high and old-fashioned, and front each other so closely, that from roof to roof an active man might spring. Their general appearance betokens fear or wretchedness; for, while some of the windows are so jealously blinded, as to prevent all chance of espionage from without, others are recklessly exposed to the eye of the passenger, as if it were intended to display the extent of the dirt and poverty within. The large brick dwelling at the bottom of the court is curiously situated. At either gable, it opens by a side door into one of the foul dark passages we have described; the front is to the court; and the back abuts upon one of those small and half-forgotten cemeteries, not larger than a modern drawing-room, which may still be seen, studding here and there the more ancient portions of that “mighty mass of wood, and brick, and mortar,” ycleped “the great metropolis.”
Within this dwelling, there was a semblance of opulence that formed a striking contrast to the squalid poverty that was perceptible in every other building around it. The rooms were crowded with ill-assorted furniture, and the walls covered with mirrors and pictures. On the tables and mantelpiece, clocks, china, and fancy-ornaments were incongruously heaped together; the whole looking liker a broker’s store-room than the private dwelling of a man in trade. The place was a receptacle for stolen property—or in thieves’ parlance, the house of “a fence.”
In a large apartment on the first floor the owner of this singular abiding-place was seated. He seemed a man of fifty, and his own appearance was as curious as the domicile he inhabited. To judge by the outline of his countenance, you would call him an Irishman, while its character and expression were decidedly that of a Jew. Indeed nothing could be less prepossessing than both; and the look of the man, taken altogether, was low, blackguard, and repulsive.
On the table beside which this ill-favoured gentleman was seated, there were lights, glasses, and decanters; a comfortable fire was blazing in the hearth, and window-shutters, plated with iron, were carefully secured with bolt and bar.
Mr. Brown, for so the master of the house was named, seemed occupied with business of no common interest; and to a letter, which he held open in his hand, frequent references were made. His actions were those of a man placed in a situation of perilous uncertainty; for he frequently rose from his chair and paced the room, muttering to himself disjointed sentences, and again returning to the table, to re-peruse an epistle which evidently contained matter of deep moment to the reader. Suddenly he rang the bell, and its summons was answered by a personage of remarkable exterior.
He was a hunchback, and so curiously distorted, that he seemed to be constructed of nothing but legs and arms. From his appearance you would guess him to be fifteen, but his face told you that he was at least five years older; and on every line and feature of that sinister countenance cunning and knavery were imprinted.
“Frank,” said the master of the hunchback, “who brought Mr. Sloman’s letter?”
“The red-haired man from the City-road, who proved our last alibi at the Bailey,” was the reply.
“Humph!” returned Mr. Brown, again glancing his eyes over the letter, and favouring the hunchback with occasional extracts from its contents,—“‘Matter of deepest importance,’—‘not a moment to be lost,’—‘Be with you punctually,’—‘Come through the burial-ground at nine.’ Have you unlocked the wicket, Frank?”
“Not till I had your orders,” returned the attendant.
“Right, Frank; people can never be too guarded; but Sloman’s a safe hand, and we have done a good stroke of business together before now. It must be plate or jewels;—and yet I was talking to an old cracksman this very evening, and if there had been a smash last night of any consequence he would have been safe to know it and tell me. Unlock the wicket, Frank—and then slip over to the Fortune of War, and try if you can get any intelligence.”
The hunchback disappeared; and during his absence, Mr. Brown divided his attention pretty equally between the contents of Mr. Sloman’s epistle and those of the decanter at his elbow. In a quarter of an hour, the hunchback’s key was heard turning in the street-door lock,—and he presently announced, that, having made diligent inquiries from several professional gentlemen who were refreshing themselves in the back parlour of the Fortune of War, he was then and there assured, that nothing had been done the preceding evening but the usual theatrical business—with the exception of a silver coffee-pot, that had been abstracted from a west-end hotel.
Another quarter of an hour passed—a church-bell chimed—nine was sounded from the belfry; and, ere the clock ceased striking, steps were heard upon the stairs, and “the thing of legs and arms” announced “Mr. Sloman.”
The expected visitor was a large, corpulent, clumsy-looking nondescript, with a hooked nose, and light complexion, that rendered it impossible to decide whether he should be classed as Jew or Gentile.
At Mr. Brown’s invitation he took a chair, filled a glass, ventured a remark touching the present state of the weather, and ended with an eulogy on the wine.
“It should be capital, for it comes directly from the cellar of a noble lord, who is considered to be as good a judge of port as any man in England,”—said Mr. Brown; “his head butler and I do business pretty extensively. He’s always hard up, his woman is so desperately extravagant; for actresses are always expensive cattle, as you know. I have recommended him to take a rib; but he can’t stand matrimony, he says,—at the west-end, it’s reckoned so infernally vulgar.”
“You got my letter,” said Mr. Sloman, with a significant look.
Mr. Brown nodded assent.
“We’re all alone?” inquired Mr. Sloman.
“Not a soul in the house, but Frank and the old housekeeper,” was the reply.
“Well,” rejoined the visitor, “let us go slap to business. We have done a little in our time, Mr. Brown, and I flatter myself to mutual satisfaction.”
Mr. Brown smiled affirmatively.
“Every transaction between us,” continued Mr. Sloman, “safe, honourable, and agreeable.”
“The last stolen bills were devilish awkward to manage,” observed Mr. Brown, “and things became so ticklish, that they were returned to the parties for three hundred. Not a rap more—no—upon my honour!”
“Nothing in the bill line,” observed Mr. Sloman, “at present.”
“Glad of it,” returned Mr. Brown. “Is it a crack?—plate, jewels, or—”
“Quite another line—In a word, a thousand’s offered—get the thing done, and we divide!”
Mr. Brown started. Two things occasioned this disturbance of constitutional self-possession; the first was the largeness of the consideration, and the second, an intimation that the business was in “a new line.”
“Who are the parties, and what’s the business?” was the inquiry.
“Of the one I know nothing; of the other, particulars are contained in this sealed paper. The party who communicates with me, forbade it to be opened until the thing was put in train.”
“Well, how the devil,” said Mr. Brown, “can I enter on a business that I know nothing of?”
“I only know generally,” returned Mr. Sloman, “what it is.”
“Go on,” said Mr. Brown impatiently.
“There is a person in the way—he must be removed;” said Mr. Sloman in a whisper.
“Murdered, of course,” observed the host.
“Upon my soul, Mr. Brown, I am quite surprised at the unprofessional nature of your remark. Do you see any thing particularly green about me, to lead you to suppose that I would make myself accessory before fact? I neither know the man, nor will know anything of the man; or what is to become of him, or what will become of him. I got this sealed note, and that there flimsy as retaining fee,” and he held up a sealed packet, and a bank note for a hundred pounds, both of which Mr. Brown took and examined most attentively.
“That’s sealed close enough,” he said, laying down the paper on the table; “and that’s genuine,” he added, after submitting the bank note to an investigation before the candle, to ascertain the authenticity of the water-mark. “Is the five safe?” he said, still playing with the hundred in his hand.
“I’ll freely deposit that hundred as security,” returned Mr. Sloman, “and now, in a word, is the thing in your line? Will you do it?”
“Do what?” responded Mr. Brown, with a look of innocent surprise.
“My dear Brown,” returned Mr. Sloman, “what the devil use in dodging with a friend?”
“It’s you that’s dodging,” replied the amiable host; “pray may I read this paper?”
“Read it, if you please, but tell me nothing of the contents.”
“You’re a deep-un,” Slowey and Mr. Brown again passed the bank note between the candle and his eye. “Undeniable!” he muttered, and next moment he retired to the corner of the apartment, at the special solicitation of Mr. Sloman; and then having broken the seal of the packet, Brown read the writing, while Sloman, in perfect ignorance of its import, drew the decanter closer, and as cocknies say, “assisted” himself liberally to the contents.
When the worthy owner of the house had read the scroll, the effect upon him seemed astounding. His frame appeared convulsed, the lip whitened, and the hand that held the paper seemed scarcely able to retain it. He read it again and again, and then, crumpling it in his grasp, returned to the table, filled a glass of brandy, and drained it to the bottom; an example faithfully followed by his excellent friend, Mr. Sloman.
“Well, Mr. B., what say you?”
“This simply—the business shall be done.”
“To the satisfaction of the parties concerned?” inquired Mr. Sloman.
“Yes; or you may keep the four hundred.”
“He is to be disposed of, so that he shall give no farther trouble. Remember that, Mr. Brown.”
“The grave is the best security for that,” returned the host.
“Stop, stop; don’t tell me any particulars. Only let the thing come off like a business transaction,—you understand me?”
“Perfectly responded Mr. Brown.
“And you undertake it?”
“I do,”—and in that understanding pocket this retainer and Mr. Brown put the bank note into his breast-pocket. “Come, as matters are arranged, let us have another bottle.”
“No, no, no,—I must return to the person waiting your reply.—He will be impatient.”
“Who are the parties, Sloman?—honour bright.”
“By heaven! I know no more of them than you do; nor, stranger still, does the agent who proposed the affair to me. Best assured the thing is ably planned, and there are deep ones at the bottom of it.”
“Ay, and I promise you that it shall be as ably executed,” responded Mr. Brown.
“To a gentleman of your experience,” said Mr. Sloman, with a bow, “it would be impertinent to offer advice. The fewer number of people employed in the job, (remember, I know nothing of it,) why the less chance there is of splitting.”
“Mr. Brown assented by a nod.
“To an honest tradesman, like yourself, or a lawyer of character, like me, any thing to compromise us would be detrimental.”
A parting glass was drunk,—and the payment, its mode and certainty, all being carefully arranged, the excellent gentlemen separated with a warm shake of the hand, protestations of mutual esteem, and a God bless you! Mr. Sloman was emancipated by the churchyard door; the hunchback locked the grating; and Mr. Brown, having interdicted all visitors for the night, excepting the favoured few who had the private entree of his domicile, sate down “alone in his glory.”
The step of the hunchback was heard no more, as he had dived into the lower regions which he inhabited. Mr. Brown looked suspiciously about him for a moment, and satisfied that he was in perfect loneliness and security, he burst into a passionate soliloquy, and strange, the language it was uttered in was in Irish!
“Who says that he who waits for vengeance will not sooner or later find a time? Ha! the hour at last is come, when that heart, proud man, which I cannot reach myself, shall bleed profusely through another’s. Let me look back. I remember well the moment when the jury returned my conviction, and the judge, to strike terror into others, sentenced me to eternal banishment, and ordered me to be transported from the dock. My prosecutor stood leaning against the bench, and returned my glance of impotent revenge, with one of supercilious disdain, as a lion would look upon a cur. Thirteen long years I dragged out in slavery—and such slavery, to one, who like me, had known the comforts which appertains to a gentleman’s dwelling! I escaped—reached England—fortune has smiled upon me, and I am wealthy—no matter how the money came—and none suspect me—none know me as a returned transport save one, and with her the secret’s safe. I never can be detected here for, fortunately for me, it was believed I failed in my escape, and was drowned attempting it. Has wealth engrossed my thoughts—has money made me happy? No, no,—vengeance, vengeance, haunt my very dreams! But it was not to be obtained—I dared not venture near the man I hate—the attempt would have been too perilous—I should be known, and if discovered, without the power of inflicting injury, I should be myself the victim, and my ruin would gratify the man I loath. Heavens! can it be true, and is the hour of vengeance come at last? It is! it is! Denis O’Halloran, before a third night pass, the worm you despised and spurned in your hour of triumph, shall sting you to the soul! Now for the means. That Hebrew barterer in blood, who has changed his name and calls himself a Christian—he gave a necessary caution. I’ll follow it—the fewer employed in such a deed the better. Ha, I have it! The body-snatchers—ay—they are the men. I can manage it through Frank.—He was one of them, but the labour was too severe for him. That devil-boy has in that puny frame-work, the ferocity of a tiger, and the cunning of a fiend; he loves mischief for itself, and doats upon a deed of blood. Yes,—the resurrectionists are the men; and they so readily manage to rid themselves of the carrion afterwards. There are three of them—surely enough—all young men, and two of them were pugilists. He is described as tall, active, and powerful, and his father’s son will not be wanting in the hour of danger;—but what is one man to three?—Hark! the street-bell rings—I expect nobody to night!—Hush, here comes the boy.”
As he spoke the hunchback entered, and announced that “the gipsy’’ was passing, and wished to speak to Mr. Brown.
“Saints and angels! the very person that I want! Show her up. Ay—we need a decoy—in every mischief, woman can be usefully employed.”
The announced one entered Mr. Brown’s great chamber, and addressed him with the familiarity of an old acquaintance.
“I leave town to-morrow,” she began—
“I doubt it,” was the reply.
“Why?” asked the gipsy, sharply.’
“The reason you shall know presently. Mary,” he continued, “have you forgotten events that happened nineteen years ago?”
“Can they ever be forgotten, Hacket?—my own disgrace—my brother’s murder.”
“And yet, Mary, you have not the reason to recollect them that I have. You were never banished.”
“Was I not worse than banished?” returned the gipsy. “See what my life has been since I was disgraced and driven from my native land—with one passing gleam of happiness, a scene of guilt, and crime, and misery. Once my wandering career was stayed; I was loved, and raised from poverty; I was sheltered, protected, educated. My wayward destiny had found a home at last; and the evening of a troubled life promised to end in peace and quiet. Accident in a moment robbed me of him on whom my future fate depended—and I was again cast upon the world, when I had experienced enough of happiness only to estimate its loss more acutely. Have not misery and suffering been my companions since? I have felt the indignity of a gaol; I have been the inmate of a madhouse; I am now a half-crazed wanderer. Homeless and friendless I’ll live; and when the spirit passes, no holy lip shall breathe a prayer for the soul’s repose of a nameless outcast, who probably will perish on a dung-hill.”
“And what would you give for vengence on him whose fickle love caused you this misery and shame? Listen, Mary; before three suns go down in ocean, vengeance shall be ours!”
“How? speak, Hacket?”
“Denis O’Halloran shall be childless—through the son’s heart I’ll reach the father’s.—Attend!”—and Hacket rapidly detailed the outline of the foul conspiracy.
“With lips apart, and eyes fixed intensely on the narrator’s countenance, Mary Halligan listened in silence. Suddenly the street-bell rang once more, and Haeket was called away, leaving the gipsy alone.
“And so the son’s to be slaughtered to break the father’s heart,” she muttered,—“and he thinks that I am savage as himself, and that I will aid him in his deed of blood. Alas! he little knows that woman’s first love can never be obliterated. Five and twenty years have passed. I saw him recently; for the impulse was irresistible, and I crossed the sea to gratify the wish. Time had blanched his hair, the stoop of years had slightly bent his lofty carriage; and an empty sleeve told that he had been mutilated on the battle field. He passed me carelessly; but when I spoke, turned, as if the voice that fell upon his ear had been once familiar. He replied to me in kind accents, and gave me some silver as he walked away. Did I see him then as he was? Oh, no; I only saw the bold and handsome soldier, who, in the mountain glen, taught me first to love; and could I harm him because he trifled with a heart that never loved another; and, like an infant’s toy, threw it from him when the newness of the gift was over? No; Denis O’Hallo-ran, thy boy shall be preserved; or she whom you wooed, and won, and deserted, will perish in the effort. Ha! I hear the tiger’s foot upon the stair; and now to deceive him.”
All that the scoundrel proposed, the gipsy warmly assented to—and I was placed under instant espionage. The thing of legs and arms, ycleped Frank, watched my outgoings from the hotel.—Hacket, through the hunchback’s agency, settled with the resurrection men the price of my destruction—and all required, was a fitting opportunity to accomplish it.
Two modes presented themselves—secret murder or open violence. The first was infinitely preferable, had my habits been irregular, and that consequently I could have been seduced into some of the convenient slaughter-houses, with which the metropolis then abounded. Places there were enough; but the difficulty was, how should I be gotten there? Women were employed, but Isidora proved a counter-charm. Scented billets, couched in ardent language, reached me daily; but the assignations were disregarded. Could letters be credited upon ladies’ hearts, I had done prodigious execution but I acted like “a man of snow,” and out-josephed Joseph. To Mr. Hartley I even submitted these amatory effusions, and in his company I actually kept two or three appointments. It was observed, probably from some blinded window, that another person was in my company, and that no attempt could be made upon me with success; and like Hotspur’s spirits “none did come, though we did call for them.” Unknown to each other, Hacket and I played a deep and desperate game, the stake was life, and—as the cards turned up—I won it.
Why that a regular Emeralder like me, whose native soil is known to be favourable to the growth of gallantry as it is unfriendly to that of reptiles, should play deal-adder to the call of beauty in the streets, the following chapter may possibly account for.
“Cats. Cæsar shall forth: the things that threatened me.
Ne’er looked but on my back; when they shall see
The face of Cæsar—they are vanished.”
“Ham. Oh most pernicious woman!”
“‘3d Mur. Tis he—
2d Mur. Stand to’t.”
Shakespeare.
W hen I met Isidora in her mountain home, her graceful person, aided by manners particularly naive and gentle, had fascinated me, and taught me, for the first time, to feel the influence of love. Hers was the artless beauty that man never gazes on unmoved—the coldest heart would own its power—and mine at once admitted it. But when a closer intimacy banished the timidity which a secluded life and conventual education naturally produced—when she looked no longer on me as a stranger, expressed her opinions freely, and conversed without restraint—I found her gifted with intelligence beyond what so young a life could warrant, and a spirit, in ordinary events, mild, gentle, and endearing, but one, if necessity required, capable of that devoted fortitude, which so frequently, in pain and poverty, raises woman superior to misfortune, and distances immeasurably the boasted heroism of man. I was now, by the permission of Mr. Hartley, constantly in the presence of his daughter. At his table a cover was reserved for me, and I was an inmate of a neighbouring hotel. In the various places visited by strangers to the metropolis, I daily accompanied Isidora; for in concerns of deeper interest her father seemed entirely engaged. I sailed with her on the river—I rode with her in the parks. Is it then to be wondered at that boyish fancy ripened into a strong and endearing passion?—one that no secondary impression could afterwards efface, and which, like the star of hope, brightened the darkest hour of my career, and finally crowned success with that best benison of heaven—woman’s love.
On the third evening after my unsuccessful attempt to effect a reconciliation with Mr. Clifford, we had strolled westward, and, returning through St. James’s Park, sate down to rest upon a bench beside the Serpentine. In the story of my life it was a day never to be forgotten; for I had told Isidora what could not have been a secret, and, amid tears and blushes, she had owned that to her father she could give now-only a divided heart. He who has loved at twenty, and excited a kindred passion in the object of his regard, can only fancy what I felt. The world seemed strewn with roses—the sky without a cloud. Was not Isidora mine? and rich in woman’s love, what else was to be wished for? Alas! how many trials were before me, ere that haven of happiness was won!
I mentioned before, Mr. Hartley’s business was so engrossing, that from breakfast time we rarely saw him until he returned late to dinner. The evening was closing, and the chimes of St. Martin’s steeple warned us that we should resume our walk. The bench on which we had been sitting was directly in front of a clump of trees; and on moving a pace or two, we perceived, for the first time, that a tall and singular looking woman was standing immediately beside us, although until we had risen the shrubs effectually concealed her. Her figure and attitude were graceful, and the outline of the countenance fine—with a complexion so dark, and eyes so brilliant, that they at once betrayed a gipsy origin. She was past the middle age—but when a girl, she no doubt possessed the beauty for which that singular race are so remarkable. She regarded me with fixed attention; her eyes glancing slightly at my fair companion, and then settling upon mine with a stealthy expression of inquiry. We attempted to pass her, but she raised her arm, and signed that we should remain.
“What do ye want, good woman?” I said, as I offered her some silver.
“Not money,” was her reply, and she pushed back the hand I had extended. “I would speak with you, and speak with you alone.”
“With me! You can have no business with a stranger”—
“With strangers I have none. With you I have important business,” returned the gipsy.
“I am unknown to you, my friend.” She smiled incredulously, and then peering sharply at my face, she measured me with a glance from head to foot.
“Yes, I could not be mistaken—the air, the height, the figure—all, all, are similar. The same firm step and haughty carriage; ay, and the eye and lip too are his; the rest, the softer features of his mother.”
Isidora, startled at the wild attitude and address of the wanderer, clung closely to my arm for protection. The gipsy noticed it.
“Lady, from me you have nothing to dread. I may not be able to serve you, and who would injure you? Give me your hand. Nay, fear not.”
“Pshaw!” said I, “we have no faith in fortune-telling and I smiled.
“That smile too is his father’s. Come, lady, let me but look one moment.”
I pressed Isidora to comply with the gipsy’s request; and, with a smile, she presented her hand to the fortune-teller. The latter scanned the lines attentively, and then whispered something in my companion’s ear, but in a voice so low, that to me it was perfectly inaudible. Its effect upon Isidora was striking. In a moment a burning blush suffused her cheeks, and eyes, turned before upon the sybil in playful expectation, were instantly cast upon the ground. The wanderer smiled.
“Nay, lady,” she said, “take not what I have told you as any proof of skill; a boy who saw half what I did unperceived would readily have guessed that secret. One look more. Your love will end prosperously; but the time is hidden from me. Trials and disappointments interfere, but prudence and patience will overcome them. May you be happy! It would be, in sooth, a pity if sorrow should dim so sweet an eye, or cloud a brow so beautiful. And now, to see what fate designs for you, sir.”
The kindly tone of voice in which she conveyed her wishes for Isidora’s happiness of course had its full influence on me, and I freely presented the hand she desired—but still a sceptic smile accompanied the offer, and showed that in palmistry I was an unbeliever. She affected not to notice it, but proceeded with her mystic examination.
“Well,” I said, laughing, “what has fortune in reserve for me?”
“Much that I can see, and more that is wrapped in mystery.”
“Proceed.”
“I see present danger, followed by perilous adventure. The end, however, looks happy.”
“The danger,” I exclaimed; “whence and from whom?”
“The source I see; the time’s uncertain.”
“Pshaw! this is mere folly—some proof. Give me this, or I shall say your art is all speculation on the common results of life, and founded on chance of circumstances.”
“Ask, and I’ll answer you.”
“My name?” I inquired.
“Hector O’Halloran.”
“Well, I was not aware you knew me. That knowledge is easily acquired. My profession?”
“Your father’s. Am I right?”
I bowed.
“What else do you require from me?” said the woman.
Isidora had turned pale; for the readiness with which each question had been answered, seemed to infer that the gipsy really possessed the intelligence she boasted.
“Come,” I said, “one question more, and that if answered shall make me a true believer;—tell me my age!”
“Well—let me think a moment,” she returned, and placing her open hand across her forehead, she seemed for a few moments to tax her memory, as if engaged in mental calculations.
“Ay, that was the year,” she muttered; then, turning to me, she coolly answered, “On Thursday next you will be twenty.”
She paused; and the surprise visible on my countenance announced to Isidora that the answer was correct.
“And now, one word before we part;” and she laid her hand upon my shoulder—“Hector O’Halloran, beware! or your twentieth birthday will be as bloody as your first.—— Before we part, give me one promise.”
“Name it,” I replied.
“When I require you to meet me—when a writing with these marks attached to it, shall be placed within your hand”—and she gave me a scroll—“will you obey the order?”
I answered boldly in the affirmative.
“‘Tis well. Though my summons come in storm, and darkness, and at midnight, as you value life, obey it. Though beauty smiles, and music charms, leave all when that mystic signature is presented.”
Isidora and I turned our eyes on the scroll. It contained only a couple of initials—but annexed was a singular hieroglyphic, representing a heart perforated with a dagger. I smiled at the device, while Isidora became deadly pale. The wanderer saw the colour leave her cheek; and with a gentleness of voice and manner intended to remove alarm, she thus addressed my fair companion:—
“Lady, fear nothing; all will yet be well,—and by courage and caution danger shall be arrested. Go, and God bless you! Remember what I have said and you have promised. You have deadly enemies; but, Hector O’Halloran, you have one devoted friend. Ay, and humble as she is, trust to her; and if she do not save, she’ll die in the attempt.”
Ere the words were spoken, the gipsy had vanished behind the bushes, leaving Isidora and myself in marvellous astonishment at a scene equally unexpected and incomprehensible.
When we reached home, Mr. Hartley was waiting for us; and after dinner, when tête-à-tête, I recounted our adventure in the Park. He listened attentively to the detail, and asked me many questions, to which, however, I could give no satisfactory replies.
“I am at a loss,” he said, “to fathom this singular affair. The woman could have no object in creating an unnecessary alarm, and yet her communication was so vague, that one cannot even guess what the danger is, or from what quarter it may be expected. Still her caution is not to be despised, and we must be upon our guard, until it pleases your swarthy friend to be more explicit than she has been. One course must be pursued. We must keep strangers at a distance, and look at all as enemies.” He took the note I had received from Mr. Clifford on the evening after our interview, and read it carefully.
“It is his signature indubitably,” he murmured. “These well-remembered characters are not to be mistaken. Had he received you kindly—had he evinced the slightest symptom of abated displeasure when you addressed him—and did a hope remain that time could mitigate his callous feelings towards an erring child—I would, in that case, have suspected that in the monk you had that secret enemy of whom you have been warned to beware. But no—the Jesuit is secure; the dupe is all his own. He will be contented with rendering all future attempts to gain the old man’s presence unavailing. That he can effect, and more would be unnecessary. To me, the occurrence is involved in mystery too deep to be even guessed at, and it seems one that time only can unravel.”
Although to the amatory effusions which reached me by every post I was cold as St. Senanus, when he was so barbarously virtuous as to warn a single lady off his premises at midnight, still to woman’s fascination I was not altogether insensible. By singular accident, I had encountered a girl of extraordinary beauty in my walks; and though her demeanour was modest and retiring, I still fancied that I did not pass her by unnoticed. She was apparently under eighteen; and to the sweetest face imaginable, united a faultless figure. Her mourning dress was simple and becoming; and her general appearance indicated an humble respectability. To have insinuated aught against the constancy of my passion for Isidora, should be, as Lord Ogleby says, “by all the laws of love, death to the offender,” but still, when we passed each other in the street, I found myself involuntarily look round. Once, I imagined that the pretty incognita directed a furtive glance at me; and then, blushing at detection, she bent her eyes upon the ground, and walked hastily on, as if prohibiting any attempt on my part to address her, had such been my intention. But by a strange accident, the introduction that propriety forbade, chance effected.
My birth-day came. I thought upon the sybil’s warning in the Park, and I confess that it was anything but an agreeable reminiscence. I was not afraid—for what had I to fear? It was “an air-drawn dagger” that impended; but still I was far from being quite at ease. The day was gloomy; a fog obscured the sun; the dull atmosphere would damp the lightest spirits; I felt its influence on mine; and when I reached St. Paul’s, the gipsy’s warning haunted my memory, and it seemed to announce emphatically a coming evil. Her words rang in my ear, and I thought I heard Her again repeat, “Hector O’Halloran, beware! or your twentieth birth-day will be as bloody as your first.” I mused upon the prophecy—“The ides of March were come.” Well, the sybil said that courage and caution would overcome the threatening danger. Both should be exercised; and a few brief hours would fulfil or falsify the augury.
These sombre thoughts were suddenly interrupted, for directly before me, and scarcely distant a dozen yards, I recognised the graceful figure of the fair incognita, whom fortune, good or evil, appeared determined to throw across my path continually.
Should I address her as I passed? I wished to do so, but hesitated. Suddenly a man hurried rudely along, and pushing with violence against the pretty unknown, she staggered a few paces and would have fallen on the flagway, had I not sprang forward and caught her in my arms. The scoundrel who had done the mischief, dreading the consequences of his brutality, hastened away, and was speedily lost in the fog.
Fortunately, a tavern was immediately at hand. I supported her in; obtained a private sitting-room, the assistance of the females of the house, and the incognita was speedily recovered. We were then left alone. I received her warmest acknowledgments for my kindness; and thus encouraged, I pressed my inquiries to learn who she was, and, with the timidity of a girl unaccustomed to hold converse with a stranger, by degrees I learned the fair one’s history.
She was the orphan of a soldier. Her father, a lieutenant in the line, had fallen at the assault of Badajos; her mother, years before was dead; and her only living relation, an aged aunt, who, from infirmities, was unable to leave the house. They enjoyed a trifling independence—one that required careful management to render it sufficient to meet moderate wants, and maintain a respectable position in society. Hence she accounted for the necessity imposed upon one so young of appearing frequently in public.
Over the simple story of a life, she threw a shadowing of romance that strongly interested me. In alluding to the narrowness of her means, my fair acquaintance mentioned circumstances which could not but engage my sympathy. Her aunt had fallen into the hands of a grinding solicitor, and been plundered accordingly; for how could an infirm old woman obtain redress, when opposed to a satellite of the law? Her father had demands upon the Government when he fell in his country’s cause; but with no interest to support it, the claim was made and rejected. No wonder, then, that Irish chivalry at once prompted me to offer myself her champion, and I expressed a strong desire to visit her aged relative. With some hesitation, she acceded to the request, and named, for a reason I have forgotten, a late hour that evening for an interview.
Were I asked what had excited this curiosity regarding the history of a stranger, and with what objects I sought a closer acquaintance with the incognita, I could not answer the question. To Isidora my allegiance remained unshaken; and yet some secret impulse urged me to cultivate an intimacy, which prudence should have interdicted, and every bond of love forbade.
The day appeared interminable. It wore away at last; and the hour drew nigh when I was to meet my young incognita. I told Isidora of my morning adventure; but I suppressed the fact, that an evening interview was to follow it. I feared that Mr. Hartley, from the habitual suspicion with which he scrutinized every transaction of life that bore a questionable feature, would not approve of my becoming patron to a girl so pretty and unprotected as the soldier’s orphan, and therefore I kept that intention to myself. Some business called him out—my mistress complained of head-ache, and retired—the clock struck nine—I rang for my cloak and stick—for of late I never went abroad after dark without a stout shillelah—and, as I was leaving the room, Dominique placed a sealed paper in my hand, which he said had been just left with the porter by a person who disappeared the moment it was delivered.
The billet was short; and the curious device attached to it, announced that it came from the gipsy. It ran thus:—
“Meet me on the right-hand side of Blackfriars Bridge, leading from the City, precisely at midnight. The crisis is at hand! I wish to prepare you for it! Fail not!”
I read the writing twice, and determined to arm myself well and obey the summons punctually. Mr. Hartley was from home. No doubt he would appear ere the hour of meeting arrived, and I waited his return for half an hour, but in vain. The evening wore heavily away—I thought of my appointment with the fair incognita—there would be time enough to keep it, and it would fill up an hour agreeably. I left the hotel, and walked briskly towards the place where the soldier’s orphan told me she would be in waiting.
I reached the “trysting place,” and stopped before the entrance of a narrow lane, which the lofty houses on either side rendered still more gloomy. That mass of masonry, St. Paul’s, flung its deep shadow over the space beneath it; and there I halted, looking towards the opening between the houses, from which I expected that my incognita would present herself. I was not kept long in waiting. A slight dark figure flitted past, and a soft voice asked, in well-remembered accents, “Is that you?” It was the soldier’s daughter. She took my arm; and under her guidance, I entered the gloomy alley from which I had seen her issue.
But I must pause. ‘Where was my foster brother? and how was that worthy personage employed? He, whose fortunes I have described as being so strangely united with mine—where was he now, when the crisis of my fate was coming? Stay, gentle reader. Leave me for a few minutes with the young lady—remember, the expedition was conducted on platonic principles—and let us inquire what befel Mark Antony O’Toole, and his excellent ally.
During the first week that Mark Antony and the rat-catcher favoured the modern Babylon with their company, no adventure of particular interest had fallen to the lot of either. As both these excellent personages enjoyed the perfect use of their limbs, their peregrinations were numerous, and every interesting object the metropolis contained, was visited from Tyburn to the Tower. In these agreeable excursions, as yet no opening to future fortune had been discovered. It is true, they had seen the world, and made sundry valuable acquaintances; and in return for blue-ruin and heavy-wet, received excellent advice, and also, a special invitation to attend the obsequies of a lamented gentlewoman, who had shuffled off this mortal coil in a back attic, two pair up, in Leg-lane. As this last token of respect to departed worth was to be strictly private and genteel, the sticks were taken from the visitors on the first landing-place as they arrived, and deposited in the ruins of a clock-case, by a man with a wooden leg, who attended funerals as chief mourner, and balls as master of ceremonies—and by this useful functionary Mark and his friend were ushered into the apartment, where all that was mortal of Mistress Ellinor Malone was lying in state.
The company were already assembled, amounting to some thirty of both sexes, all friends and relations of the deceased, and natives of the Emerald Isle—and nothing could be more imposing than the general effect which the chamber of death presented. Mistress Malone was laid out upon a bench, with a frilled cap upon her head, and a plate of snuff upon her bosom. On one side, stood a three-legged table supporting an unequal number of lights; and on the other, there was a goodly supply of gin, porter, and tobacco. Around the room the company were seated, each gentleman supporting a lady on his knee; and, to judge from appearances, a more united company had never been collected in St. Giles’s.
Being the latest arrivals from “the ould country,” the ratcatcher and his young friend obtained particular attention—and on being presented by the single-legged gentleman, they were received, in person, by the disconsolate survivor.
“Mister Macgreal, ye’r kindly welcome—and the same, to you, Mister O’Toole—we’ll brook ye’r name, for it’s a good one! I’m in grate afliixskin, as you may parsave—but God’s will be done;” and Mr. Malone crossed himself. “Patsey Doyle, fill the gintlemen a cropper ach—and put a drop in the bottom of a glass for myself, to drink to better acquaintance.”
The glasses being duly filled and emptied, Mr. Malone feelingly continued.
“Och, boys, af ye but knew my loss. There ye lie, Nelly! could as a crimpt cod; an when ye were sober—to be sure it was but seldom—the divil blister the better wife in St. Giles’s—an that’s a big word. Come, gintlemen, take a pinch out of respect for the dead—Lord rest her—amen!—and then draw a sate, an make yerselves agreeable. Patsey Doyle, there’s a lemon-box in the corner—fix it, avournene, for the gintilmen—an now, Mistress Braddigen, may be yee’d obleege us wid a song.”
The lady, an agreeable exception to professional melodists who never sing when people want them, immediately complied with the request of Mr. Malone; and having, as a necessary preliminary, removed all bronchial obstructions with a johny of “cream of the valley,” she executed with feeling and effect that beautiful ballad, intituled “The night before Larry was stretched”—and the well-merited plaudits of a delighted audience had just rewarded the exertions of the fair singer, when two fresh arrivals were added to the company.
The visitors were of the softer sex. One, was a stout gentlewoman of a certain age, whom he of the solitary leg announced as Mrs. Bunce—and the second, a very pretty young one, was also introduced as Mrs. Spicer. The fosterer and his friend, being the only gentlemen who could afford accommodation to the new comers, the master of ceremonies deposited the stout lady upon the knees of Shemus Kkua, while to Mark Antony, the honour “of bearing the weight” of Mrs. Spicer was entrusted.
The discernment evinced in the collection of the company would have been in itself a sufficient guarantee for its general respectability; and hence, the intercourse, on all sides, was easy and unreserved.
“‘Pon my sowl! a ginteeler party I hav’nt been to these six months,” observed Mrs. Spicer to the fosterer, after she had turned down a flash of max to ‘a better acquaintance,’—“and Malone—Lord comfort him in sorra!—shows the best of respect to his desaste lady.—I hope there won’t be any ruction the night, and that the wake will go off agreeable. The Connaught stockin’-man, who was bate at Phil Casey’s ball a Friday night, died this evenin’ in Guy’s Hospital. He left his death, they say, on Playbe Davis, for hitten him, wid the smoothin’-iron, when down.”
“I was rather afeard, Sally, dear,” observed Mrs. Bunce to Mrs. Spicer, “that cross ould file, yer husband, wouldn’t let ye out the night.”
“And not a toe would I have got over the trashold ather,” returned Mrs. Spicer, “only something he heard druv him into the Minories, to ask after the carakter of a chap who came to lodge with us last Monday. By gogstay, if the ould ruffin comes home early, and finds me out—may be there won’t be a purty too-roo kicked up? Well, the divil may care—as Punch said when he missed mass!” Then, in a lower tone, she addressed herself to the fosterer.
“He’s so gallows jealous,” said the lady, “that one hasn’t the life of a dog. He, and his other wives”—(for it would appear that in the connubial line Mr. Spicer had dealt largely)—“were always murderin’ one another—ay, and before the beak every week, and sometimes twice too. How, I have been married to him two months come Saturday, and sorra mark he could show agen me but one black eye—for I can bare a dale of provokashin—and that he brought upon himself too.” She then continued to remark, that Mr. Spicer’s temper was but indifferent, and when he had “the cross glass in” a saint wouldn’t stand him. He had also “a most aggravatin’ tongue,”—and that evening, in alluding to a former acquaintanceship which had existed between herself and a drummer in the Guards, he used terms of so little delicacy, that a mutual interchange of compliments resulted—Mrs. Spicer, receiving the contents of a pewter pint, which token of connubial endearment was as promptly acknowledged with the boot-jack, by which it appeared an upper tooth had been effectually removed without the assistance of a dentist—a loss, on Mr. Spicer’s part, ill to bear, as it was the only specimen of natural ivory he possessed.
In such light and pleasing conversation an hour passed unheeded—for minutes winged with pleasure fly unnoticed. Harmony prevailed; and, by a philosophic effort, Mr. Malone forgot his loss, and at the request of the company, and assisted by a violin accompaniment of the gentleman with the wooden-leg, he chaunted “The Groves of Blarney.” It is right to observe that, in the selection of the song, an affectionate deference to the taste of the deceased was observed, the said “Groves” being an especial favourite of his departed companion. If ever wake proved pleasant, Mrs. Malone’s bade fair to be so. All were happy—Mrs. Bunee declared the ratcatcher an agreeable man—and the sooner that Mr. Spicer looked after his truant spouse the better—for, were the truth known, Mark Antony was making a wild inroad on a heart that hitherto, had not “loved wisely, but too well.”
“A change came o’er the spirit of the” night—the door unclosed—and a square-built man, with a grizzled head and most infelicitous aspect, was seen in the door-way, fixing a basilisk glance on “that fair frail one” who rested on the fosterer’s knee. An interjectional remark from Mrs. Spicer left the identity of the personage indubitable—as she observed, “That’s the ould divil, and no mistake—and maybe there won’t be a reglar shindy!”
Though the gentleman paused in the doorway, he lost no time in opening the conversation.
“So ye’r there, Sally Spicer!” and the remainder of the sentence was couched in language which the Court Journal would pronounce irregular.
“And where else should I be, ye ould, batter’d-out apology for a Christian?”
“Come out o’ that—tramp home—an may be ye wont catch it!”
“Can ye spare another tooth convaniently?” responded his rebellious helpmate.
“I’m waitin’ for ye, Sal!” returned the elderly gentleman, with a mysterious crook of the finger.