The Fortunes of Hector O'halloran, and his Man Mark Antony O'toole., by W. H. Maxwell

Our career was short and brilliant. We managed to get up a row in Dame-street with a party of college men, bent on the same errand as ourselves. The watch interfered—we joined our quondam opponents in a treaty, offensive and defensive, to resist this impertinent intervention, and the fight for a short time was respectably maintained. But numbers succeeded. I was stretched hors de combat; sundry belligerents (the quaker included) were captured and carried to the watch-house, while the remainder, reserving themselves for deeds of valour on a future day, levanted, and left us to our fate.

Either owing to the severity of the blow, or from the shock of the fall, after having saluted my mother earth I lay perfectly motionless; while, alarmed at this proof of prowess, instead of conveying me to durance vile, the guardians of the night, declaring me dead as Julius Cæsar, carried me into a neighbouring apothecary’s, to ascertain whether that disciple of the healing god could minister to mortal wounds, and set defunct gentlemen safe upon their legs again. The doctor having wiped and mounted his spectacles, proceeded to what he believed would turn out a post mortem examination; for after a single glance, he started back and exclaimed—

“Why, ye villans—every sowl of ye will be hanged! Haven’t ye murdered a quaker?”

“Not at all,” responded the commander of the faithful. “Sure it was the quaker that murdered us.”

“Pace or war,” returned a watchman, “he’s the hardest hitter betune this and Bully’s acre, and that’s a big word. He give me one clip wid the left hand, and jist look at my eye, af ye plase. By this book,” and Charlie reverently held up his lantern, “I think it was the crown of my head that first titched the gravel. It was the clanest knock down I ivir got—and many’s the floorer I’ve had in my time from thim college divils. Bad luck attind them night and day—the thieves!”

“Search his pockets,” said the leech;—“some paper will probably tell.”

The quaker’s coatee forthwith underwent a judicial investigation, and divers mercantile documents at once established the identity.

“Why,” said the apothecary, “he’s son of Mr. Pryme, the rich merchant, a man whom every body respects. By my conscience, I have one comfort for ye. If any thing goes wrong with the boy here, every man Jack of ye is sure of Botany Bay—ay! and the devil a rap it will cost any of ye for the passage out.”

“Whish’t!” said the doctor, for I gave a twist upon the floor, and muttered—“Fill fair, and be d———d to you.”

“Holy Bridget!” ejaculated the chief of the Charlies—“if ivir I met a quaker of his kind. He drinks like a fish, and swears like a trooper!”

“All! he’s coming round again,” exclaimed the doctor. “See!—the colour’s on his cheek. I tell you what you’ll do. Call a chair, carry him home fur and asy; and, if ye can, smuggle him down the area steps, for the ould gentleman wouldn’t be overpleased to see him. I’ll drop the lad a line or two in the morning, and make all right for you.”

Instantly a charlie trotted off, and in a few minutes I was safely ensconced in a “leathern conveniency” now extinct, which at that time performed a double duty in transporting beauty to the ball-room, and drunkards to their cribs.

I was promptly conveyed to my destination; and, by some strange fatality, a new chief butler that very evening had succeeded the former “pantler” of Mr. Pryme. I was, of course, personally unknown to’ him; and having been discreetly slipped down the area steps, it was explained that “I was rather the worse of liquor, and had been mighty pugnacious into the bargain.” The butler took me on his back; and without let or hindrance, I was carried to the chamber of the absent Samuel—stripped—put to bed,—promised a bowl of whey—and left in undisputed possession of the dormitory of the drunken quaker.

Two or three hours passed; and how the secret transpired I cannot guess. I was buried in profound sleep, when lights, flashed across my eyes and awakened me. Through an opening in the curtains I saw three females beside the bed; and I also discovered that the apartment was a strange one.

Surprise or fear will sometimes remove the consequences of inebriety, and men become suddenly sober. I felt this singular effect. In a moment after I awoke, I was conscious that I had been lately a victim to “the rosy god,” and that I was now, in Irish parlance, “just in the very centre of a hobble.” Dipping my face beneath the counterpane, I murmured in a growling voice—“The lights! the lights! my head, my head!”

“Ruth,” said the elder female, “remove the candles. Samuel! my son, what meaneth this? Art thou fallen?”

“Ah! Samuel—would that that groan were the groan of sin, and not of suffering; and that thy conscience rather than thy stomach were moved. Speak! How did the enemy overtake thee? Where did he enclose thee in his net?”

I dipped my head beneath the bed coverings, and, in a husky voice, muttered—“The barracks in George’s-street.”

“Mercy on us!—Ruth—Rachel. It is the large brick building in which abide godless men in scarlet. And how, Samuel, did the evil one achieve thy fall?”

“One said I was floored by a charlie, and another left it upon a clip from a blackthorn.”

“No, no, Samuel; I ask the carnal means. Was it by that soul-destroying liquor, wine, or was it by worse?”

Nay, Samuel. Close thy ears, Ruth—avert thy head, Rachel; he would not have his shame revealed. Was it, Samuel, a dancing Herodias—or some Delilah, with bewitching looks!

“Punch—punch!—Whisky new—the kettle not boiled—and too much acid,” came grumbling from below the blankets.

“How fearful is inebriety! Thy very voice, my son, is changed. But verily, as it is thy first offending, I will pardon it, and give thee the kiss of peace.”

So saying, she popped her head through the curtains, and bestowed upon me the reconciliatory accolade. After thus sealing my pardon, the worthy gentlewoman sailed out of the apartment, accompanied by her handmaid Ruth.

I felt myself in a curious position,—located in a strange house, ensconced in a comfortable bed from which the right owner would presently eject me, and watched by a lovely girl of eighteen, on whose sweet countenance the very imprint of innocence was stamped. And what was I?—A regular impostor. Well, what was to be done? Should I admit my villany, and be bundled off direct to Newgate, under a charge of burglary, or some more felonious intentions? And to whom was this interesting confession to be made? The old dame?—no, faith—there no kiss of peace would ratify my pardon. The young one?—pshaw, the very idea that she had been seated beside the bed of a man in scarlet would annihilate Rachel on the spot. No doubt a discovery must ensue—but, like every thing a man dislikes, I determined to procrastinate it and trust to fortune.

“Samuel,” said the sweetest voice imaginable, “does thy head ache? Let me apply this essence and passing her hand gently through the curtains, she bathed my temples with eau-de-Cologne. My arm was outside the coverlid,—she took my hand in hers and pressed it affectionately.

“How feverish!” she murmured. “But here comes Ruth, with something our mother sends, which will allay thy thirst.”

“Come, Rachel, sleep will restore thy brother.” Then addressing herself to me, “Farewell, friend Samuel,—may this be the last of thy foolishness and after this flattering admonition, she exited from the chamber, stiff as a ramrod.

“Farewell, dear brother,”—and Rachel again clasped my hand in hers,—“good night! I trust sincerely I shall find thee better in the morning.”

“The—the—the kiss of peace!” I managed to stammer from beneath the bed coverings.

“Willingly, dear Samuel;” and lips, “full, rosy, ripe,” were artlessly pressed to mine, while a prayer, pure from a guileless heart, implored pardon for the past, and a blessing for the future. The next moment the door was softly closed, and I “left alone in my glory.”

Would it be credited that under such circumstances had the audacity to sleep? But sleep I did—and when I slept, my head was on a peaceful pillow, and the kiss of innocence still fragrant on my lips.

CHAPTER VIII. LIFE IN A WATCH-HOUSE

“I’ll ne’er be drunk while I live again but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick; if I be drunk, I’ll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.”—Merry Wives of Windsor.

Reader,—will you make a clean breast and answer a simple question?—Were you ever regularly cribbed, and deposited for safe keeping in a watch-house? Don’t confound places, and suppose for a moment, that I mean those réfugia peccatorum, now-a-days called “station-houses.” The two are no more alike, than the London Tavern is to a boiled-beef shop. If you reply to my inquiry in the negative, and art young, I can only say the mischief is irremediable—and for the best reason, because watch-houses have been defunct these twenty years. If, like myself, you are a gentleman of a certain age, and also plead ignorance—you have nothing left but to mourn over misspent time, and lament a misfortune, for which no one is blamable but yourself.

Many a jovial hour have I passed in St. Andrews—I don’t mean the Scotch College so called, but the Dublin watch-house of pleasant memory; and I have also occasionally favoured with a visit other establishments of the same kind, where belated gentlemen were sure to find the door open without having the trouble of knocking twice:—but who, except “upon compulsion,” would enter a modern bastile? The place is in everything an abomination, and so republican wherewithal in its regulations, as to be fitted only for the reception of the canaille. There, captains and cabmen are placed upon a par. “Look to him, jailer,” is the only order that is attended to; and whether you belong to swells West-end, or the swell-mob, matters not a brass button. The thing’s similar all through, and you undergo the same process of purification. You are cooped up all night, thermometer in summer 110, in winter down to zero—and bundled before the Beak in the morning all “unkempt” and with “marvellous foul linen.” Of course, you are not flat enough to give your real name. If you are a tradesman, why you wish to “come it genteel,” and pass for the time being as Mr. Ferdinand Fitzsnooks. If, on the contrary, you happen to be a “top-sawyer,” you descend from your “high estate,” and—though “Baron or Squire, or Knight of the Shire,”—adopt “for the nonce,” the simpler appellation of Smith, Brown, or Robinson. Well, in due course, you are favoured with a hearing—the charges are proven, and the Worthy Magistrate—he’s always so termed in the Sunday papers—runs you up a bill as glibly as the waitress of an eating-house. Imprimis, you are scored down five shillings for being drunk—forty ditto, for assault and battery—as much more for jingling some Doctor’s bell—and the tale ends in your five-pound flimsy having got a regular sickener. You fork the money out, and prepare directly to make your exit; but hold, you are not safe yet—wait for the parting admonition. Beaky having first premised that your name is neither Smith, Brown, nor Robinson, is sorry to assure you that he considers you a disgrace to your family and order—and, after a flattering panegyric upon his own nice sense of what is due to public justice, he concludes with a positive assurance, that if you ever renew your acquaintance with him, so far from standing “betwixt the wind and your nobility,” you shall have the benefit of a month’s exercise on the tread-mill, “and no mistake.” And now comes Mr. Ferdinand Fitzsnooks. He stands forward—but how different is his bearing from that of the pseudo Mr. Smith, who has just jumped into a cab in waiting, with coronets emblazoned on the panels. He does not listen to the charges with inattention; nor does he venture to meet the magistrate’s eye, as it occasionally is turned to that part of the court where he stands. He has been silly and noisy and riotous—but he has done no mischief. He is found guilty, and fined three pounds. The pale girl behind him—she with the infant in her arms—begins to sob, while Ferdinand appeals to the bench, and on the plea of a first offence, solicits a remission of the penalty. But Rhadamanthus is not sterner than his judge. Pshaw! worthy sir, let him go! he is but a drudge in a lawyer’s office—his master is strict—he will lose his situation, and what will that pale girl and her infant do? No; the upright magistrate is obdurate—and the slang of what “justice requires” is his only answer to the prisoner’s appeal. The jailer, a filthy, dogged, drunken, red-nosed brute, taps him on the shoulder and inquires, in pickpocket parlance, whether he can “stump the rowdy?” A melancholy shake of the head tells his inability, and he is committed for—what?—want of money—to the House of Correction for a fortnight. Worthy sir—pause before you send that silly young man to prison. Look at his wife—she is barely eighteen—young, pretty, and inexperienced. She has not a relative in London,—and steeped in poverty and surrounded with temptations, will you rob her for fourteen days of her protector, because he cannot command three sovereigns? True, you fined Mr. Smith two pounds more, and also talked something about the tread-mill—but, for your very life, you would not have ventured to commit him. I could show you Mr. Smith’s name in the peerage—ay, and high up, too; and he could have as easily given you a cheque upon his bankers for five thousand, as he handed you the penalty of five pounds. And this is law!—England, England! you call yourself the land of freedom!

But what has all this to do with your story? Reader,—I beg your pardon, and thank you for the hint.

The hatch of St. Andrew’s watch-house—a sort of outer-door, only breast-high, but furnished with a row of iron spikes which would bid defiance to Harlequin himself—was closed—and, a very unusual occurrence at that late hour, all within the house of durance was quiet. Peter Bradley, the captain of the hold, was seated on a wooden bench in his accustomed corner, with a little table before him, on which was awfully displayed the fatal book in which delinquencies were chronicled, flanked by a pewter vessel full charged with Sweetman’s XXX. Three guardians of the night, who formed the jail-guard, sate round the fire “drawing” a comfortable dudheine, and casting, from time to time, a longing eye at the battered quart deposited beside the elbow of the commander. There were other occupants—for occasionally melancholy faces peeped through a grated wicket in the door, which separated the dungeon-keep from the guard-room,—and from their place of captivity looked anxiously at the great man seated in the corner, whose nod could loose or bind. Indeed the task of watch and ward was easy, for the prisoners were comprised in one solitary group, namely—a drunken sailor, a fiddler with one leg, and “a maid who loved the moon,” brought there for fading through a shop-window and making smithereens of divers panes of glass, for which, as, from a lack of the king’s currency, they could make no proper compensation, they were safely incarcerated.

Peter Bradley nibbed his pen, laid down his spectacles, gave a heavy sigh, and then, as if to kill care, took a long and steady pull from the pewter. “Business,” said the commander, addressing himself to his myrmidons at the fire, “business is gone to the dogs.‘Tis twelve o’clock!” he continued, as the wooden time-piece above his head announced the “witching hour.”

“Twelve o’clock! and not a sowl picked up but devils who couldn’t muster, if it saved them from the gallows, turnpike-money for a walking-stick. Out with them varmint in the black-hole, Barney Casey; what use in shuttin’ up craters without a scultogue, * and lumbrin the place wid people who can’t stand a pint of beer.”

     * “Seultogue, is a monetary phrase, used generally in the
     kingdom of Connaught. Its metallic value not being clearly
     ascertained, I have doubts whether it would be a legal
     tender.”—Extract from an opinion of Mr. Richard Dunn, the
     eminent barrister.

Barney, obedient to the orders of his chief, made a general jail delivery. The nymph as she glided out, acknowledged the favour conferred by dropping a graceful curtsey as she passed “the seat of justice;” the fiddler as he hopped across the floor, dutifully ducked his head, and bade a “good night to his Honour;” but the sailor, reckless of the merciful interposition which had restored him to liberty, and freed him from all liability incurred for broken glass, consigned all and every in the watch-house to a climate much hotter than the West Indies, for which ungrateful and irreligious proceeding, he received a momentum in the door-way which enabled him, “in double quick,” to reach the opposite curb-stone. The hatch was thereupon safely locked, and Mr. Bradley again addressed his brother officials:—

“There’s more beside that’s vexin’ me, boys. I hear they are goin’ to overhawl us—and sorra a turn, good or bad, that happens through the night, but must be entered in black and white. Feaks! I thought myself yesterday, that something was in the wind, for the magistrates were as short with me as cat’s-hair; and that divil, Artur French, was nearly hobblin’ me fairly. ‘Who’s this Artur French?’ says Mr. Jones.

“‘Ah, then,’ says I, ‘it’s himself that’s a raal gintleman. Sure, wasn’t his father Ulick French, of French Hall, and his mother’ ——— ———— ‘Don’t bother me about his mother,’ says he, mad as a hatter; ‘Who is he? what is he?’—‘A collegian, plase ye’r honour.’—‘Ay, and a promising disciple he is, if I may judge,’ says he, ‘by your watch-book. Why, he’s wid ye, Mr. Bradley, three times a week. The next time he pays you a visit, I beg you’ll be good enough to introduce him to me.’”

“Troth; and ye won’t,” observed one of the guard of honour at the fire-place, as he leisurely recharged his dudheine; “he’ll blarney ye, and git away wid the ould story of both ye’r mothers being Roscommon women.”

“I wish the Lord would send in a dacent customer, any how, that could pay his way,” said a second charlie: “if iver I was drier in my life!”

“Feaks!” observed the third, “and it’s myself that has got a cobweb in my throat. But, whisht! boys—look out there! Who knows our luck yet?”

Up jumped one of the smokers, and craning his head over the hatch, communicated the gratifying intelligence that the patrol were coming up with divers delinquents in close custody. The charlies pocketed their pipes, Mr. Bradley mounted his spectacles, while the shuffling of feet, and an uproar of many voices talking and arguing at their highest pitch, joined to the maudlin singing of a noisy drunkard, announced the immediate approach of a detachment of a body whom poor Burns dreaded and denounced—

“Here they come,” said the charlie at the hatch: “one man in red, either dead or dead drunk—three shy-looking scamps behind him—and a regular swell in front. Blessed Bridget! is it him? Be the hole in my coat, that’s yourself, Artur French, if ye’r ovir ground. May the davil welcome you, astore!

“Then if it is,” said the irritated commandant, “Artur French, you’ll have a new acquaintance in the morning, before ten o’clock.”

There was no mistake in the identity. A young man dressed in the extreme of fashion pushed through the watchmen with an air of authority, and hopping on the bench where Mr. Bradley had hitherto reposed his person in solitary dignity, seated himself, unbidden, beside this dreaded functionary, and—

“How thirsty,” said he, “a shindy makes one! Not bad stuff that, Peter. But, governor, what’s the matter?”—and Mr. French looked steadily in Mr. Bradley’s face, which had assumed what was intended to pass for an expression of dignified displeasure. “If you’re not as sour as a Seville orange to-night! Come, come, old chap, tip us your daddle—give us a grip of your bunch of fives!”

But Mr. Bradley held back his hand. “I tell ye what, Artur—don’t be after vexin’ me—I’m in bad temper to-night—and I’ll stand no gammon.”

“Stand your granny!” returned the young roué; “I’ll tell ye what I’ll stand—and that’s more to the purpose. Broiled kidneys, black cockles, a gallon of heavy wet, and as much punch as you can swim in. Off with ye to Nosey McKeown’s,”—and crumpling up a pound note, he pitched it into a watchman’s face,—“See that all comes in hot; and take care that his daughter Sibby brews the punch. Now, Peter, try and look pleasant. An’t I better to you than a bad stepson?”—and he punched the commander’s ribs unceremoniously.

“Arrah—Artur, have done, will ye? What the divil druv ye here the night, good or bad?” asked the commandant.

“Half a score of your scoundrels, Peter. I fell over that cursed fellow in the red jacket sleeping on the guard bed—and before I could get fairly on my pins, these villains had me fast.”

“Screen me!” exclaimed the prisoner; “why what a pother you make about a little trifling civility.”

“Trifling civility!” exclaimed’ the astonished constable: “Oh, murder, murder! there’s nothing like ungratitude. Trifling civility! Och, Artur French—I have done wid ye. When you were cotched in the garret, drinkin taa with Mr. Abbot’s maid, who got ye off, Artur? When the sawyer’s arm was broke in the roohawn at Pie-corner, who got the tinker’s wife to prove your alabay, and sware she met ye wid Kitty Flanigan, in Mud Island? When—”

“Arrah, stop man: what’s the use of raking up old yarns? Peter, I always said you were a decent cove—but they swear you’re doting lately, and that you’ll never stop till ye turn Methodist. Only for the tender regard I have for yourself, I would give up your shop altogether, and take my custom across the water to Mary’s watchhouse. But I can’t forget old friendship—the more so, when I remember that your mother and mine were both born in Roscommon.”

“Arrah, have done wid your blarney,” said the commander, testily, “and nivir mind my mother. What charge is again ye, the night?”

“Nothing—a mere trifle; I was endeavouring to make peace.” returned Mr. French, with unblushing effrontery.

“Mighty like a whale!” observed the commander, in a side whisper. “I charge him wid a felonious assault!” exclaimed a voice from behind the door.

“Step forward, young man.” And the complainant placed himself in front of Mr. Bradley’s table.

“What’s ye’r charge?” inquired the judge. “What have ye to say agin this respectable young gentleman, who was strivin’ to bring about pace and harmony?”

“Pace and harmony!” exclaimed the complainant; “he was the worst of the whole lot, barrin’ the quaker. There wouldn’t have been a blow, but for the two of them; and the quaker—”

“The quaker’s not before this court,” said Mr. Bradley, with great dignity: and yet Mr. Bradley told a fib; for the identical Quaker was lying sound asleep upon the guard bed. “What charge do you make, young man?”

“Oh! you villain!” exclaimed the accused. “Now, Peter, the fellow’s on his oath. Peter, I leave it to you. On the nick of your sowl, as an honest man, don’t I always fight with a sapling?”

“Now, Peter, what do you say to that? Wouldn’t that make a man’s hair stand an end?”

“‘Pon my conscience,” observed Mr. Bradley, “I’m thunderstruck—young man, what’s ye’r name?”

“Then, Sniggs,” returned Mr. Bradley, “the least I can do is to transport ye.”

“Transport me!” exclaimed the astonished tailor: “Arrah, for what? Is it for having my ear split?”

“Hold your tongue; I see, though young, ye’r a hardened offender. Have ye no conscience,1 man? Oh, murder! to try and sware away the life of an innicint gintleman!—Is your mother livin’?”

“No,” replied Mr. Sniggs, not exactly comprehending the drift of Mr. Bradley’s examination.

“Nather,” returned the quondam accuser; but now, as it would appear, by some freak of fortune transmuted into the accused.

“I have,” replied the artist, “a third cousin, a well-behaved girl she is, and greatly respected by her mistress, who’s married to a tanner in the Liberty.”

“Well,” said Peter graciously, “on account of that well-behaved girl, your third cousin, I’ll show mercy to you this time. Turn him out. Go home and repent, Sniggs: God forgive ye! that’s all I have to say. Be off wid ye.”

“Arrah, blur and nouns!” ejaculated the disappointed tailor, “and is that all the satisfaction I’m to get for having my ear slit like a swallow’s tail?”

“Out with him, I say. Wait till I ketch ye here agen, Sniggs. Be this book,” (and Peter flourished the empty pewter-pot) “that well-behaved girl, your third cousin that lives wid the tanner, won’t get you off the second time. I wish the drink was come. I’m grately fatigued givin’ good advice—it always laves me dry as a whistle. But what’s to be done wid the chap in the corner?”

“There’s no use spakin’ to him now,” returned a watchman; “he’s blind drunk, and fast asleep into the bargain.”

“Not he,” returned Mr. French; “poor divil! he couldn’t stand, let alone strike. At the commencement of the row he was knocked down like a nine-pin, and I wonder he was not trodden to death. Send him home, Peter ‘pon my life, it’s dangerous to keep him here.”

“No, honour bright, Peter. Look at his buttons, one of ye. What’s the number of his regiment?”

“Arrah, and upon my conscience, ourselves ought to know the road purty well. God’s blessin’ attind the Kilkinnys! it was a plasure to do bisnis wid them;—four or five to be carried home, reglar, at two shillins a head, and no cobblin’ about the money afterwards. The sergeant of the guard tallied them as they eame in, and it was only to bring the score to the quarter-master, and down came the brads in the mornin’. But who’s to pay for this chap?”

“I,” said the wild collegian, as he tossed a piece of money to the speaker. “It’s only what one gentleman should do for another, when he’s too drunk to be able to do it for himself. But here comes supper. I wonder what became of the quaker. Ah, Peter! he was a trump—and such a hitter! I’ll respect a quaker while I live. Give me a pull of ‘the heavy,’ and let us have the cockles while they are hot.”

While Mr. Bradley, with his young and amiable friend, proceeded to discuss their supper, a couple of watchmen lifted the unfortunate quaker off the guard-bed. The movement roused him; but it was soon evident that the late symposium was still uppermost in his brain.

“Come along,” said the charlie; “step out like a man; we’re bringin’ you home.”

The remark elicited a drunken effort to be melodious—and Mr Pryme sang, or strove to sing, “We won’t go home till morning.”

“If it does, sorra touch you’ll have of the disorder for a month of Sundays. Come along wid him.”

The quaker’s head was still ringing with drunken madrigals, and he proceeded to chaunt “Old King Cole.”

“Arrah, don’t bother us wid King Cole; but try and put the feet aninder ye. We’ll bring ye to George’s-street.”

“No,” no muttered the Quaker; “I’ll go home to the Merchants’ Quay.”

“Divil a sich an umproper place ye’ll go near. Haven’t ye been enough on the ran-tan already the night?” and away they toddled towards the barracks, which destination was safely reached, and the body of the pseudo lieutenant delivered to the guard, with an intimation on the part of the watchmen, that on the morrow particular inquiries should be made touching the general health of the invalid.

“This must be the officer that joined last week,” said the sergeant. “Go to his room and find his servant; and first put a knapsack under his head, and take his stock off. To do him justice, I never saw a more drunken gentleman.”

When John Crawford was awakened, and had made a personal inspection, to the utter surprise of the main guard, “pioneers and all,” he repudiated the sleeping gentleman, and satisfactorily illustrated the old adage, that the cowl no more constitutes a monk, than a red jacket makes the soldier. Honest John’s first care was to secure his master’s uniform from further damage, which he contrived to effect by the substitution of a shooting jacket; and then, nemine contradicente, it was agreed, that drunken men should be permitted to sleep themselves sober; and that accordingly, the unhappy puritan should be left in undisturbed repose.

Morning dawned through the guard-room lattice before Samuel Pryme awoke. If there be a feeling more horrible than another, it is the return of reason to a drunken neophyte when he wakens after his first debauch. The quaker stared wildly round him; there were twenty men in the room—all strangers to him; some sleeping on the wooden bench on which he lay, and others sitting smoking by the fire. His head was giddy—his brain wandered—he was tortured with a burning thirst. Where was he? Suddenly his pale cheeks reddened with shame; he felt like a Hindu who has lost caste; and, burying his face between his hands, in a smothered voice that bespoke a consciousness of abasement, while tears fell fast, he faintly murmured, “Where am I?”

The sergeant laid aside a book which he had been reading in the window—and, though a rough soldier, he felt sincerely for the penitent.

“Don’t take on so,” said he. “Young folk will be giddy. Bless your heart—there’s none of our gentlemen that arn’t wildish now and then. I wish we could get you something to drink; but the canteen is closed. Would you like to go home? I dare not spare a man; but I’ll send for Mr. O’Halloran’s servant, and pass him through the gate.” The quaker thanked him, but declined assistance; asked for and received a draught of water “cold from the pump,” the sentry unclosed the wicket, and Samuel Pryme returned to his father’s house, “a sadder, if not a wiser man,” than when he quitted it the preceding evening.

The clock struck five. Peter Bradley was snoring on his guard-bed, and Mr. French taking his ease at an unpretending hostelrie in Smock Alley, not generally known in the fashionable world, but, patronized by the pleasant part of the community, and ycleped “The Hole in the Wall.” I felt as much at home in my dormitory as if I had been legal proprietor of it, while he, unhappy youth! reconnoitred the house from the outside, with all the suspicion of a man who meditates a burglary on the premises. In their respective chambers, Mrs. Pryme and her handmaiden had owned the influence of the drowsy god, and Rachel slumbered with as safe a conscience as if she had never kissed a fusileer. There is an old saw, gentle reader, which insinuates that it is prudent occasionally to allow “sleeping dogs to lie.” We’ll adopt it “for the nonce”—inquire what had befallen that alter ego, my foster-brother, and, with your gracious permission, follow through the next chapter, the fortunes of Mark Antony O’Toole.

CHAPTER IX. THE COCK AND PUNCH-BOWL

Although I departed from Kilcullen at cockcrow, Mark Antony O’Toole, having borrowed some hours from the night, had taken the road before me. Apprehensive of the desperate lengths to which deserted dairy-maids may be driven, the fosterer moved off without beat of drum; and the better to evade pursuit, had Kitty Dwyer attempted to recover the truant, and “vi et armis” repair her reputation by a sanatory visit to the altar, Mr. O’Toole prudently declined marching by the mail-coach road, and masked his retreat with an ability that puzzled the priest himself. But as it turned out, Mark Antony’s caution was unnecessary. Kitty bore her bereavement like a Christian woman,—hinted that the sea held as good fish as ever had been taken yet,—and, from divers hymeneal overtures, blessed God that she had no grounds for despondency. Aiding and assisting sound philosophy with “rum and true religion,” she got over her disappointment—within a fortnight, the false one was forgotten—Miss Dwyer “open to an offer”—and ready to commit matrimony at sight.

Two days before his evasion from my father’s house, Mark Antony had privately despatched his kit by a Dublin carrier, and the few necessaries required for his journey were formed into a bundle of small dimensions, and suspended from the extremity of a well-tried shillelagh. Dressed in a smart morning suit that erstwhile had called me owner, the fosterer had more than once examined his outer man with evident satisfaction. His step was light, his breast without a care, and his pocket heavier than it had ever been before—he went on his way rejoicing—and when evening began to close, Mark Antony had placed five-and-twenty miles between him and that ill-requited fair one, whose only crime was loving “not wisely but too well.”

Half a century ago Irish engineers, in Yankee parlance, were “reg’lar go-a-heads.” Neither condescending to turn to the right or to the left, they crossed the country “as God had made it,” took the bull by the horns, and scorning to steal round a hill they boldly breasted it. The fosterer had been escalading one of these heights for the last hour, and, on topping its ridge, overtook two wayfarers of opposite sexes who had preceded him in the ascent, and were now resting after its achievement.

Like himself, the travellers were not incommoded with heavy baggage, for what appeared to be their united kit was even smaller than his own, and was comprehended within the compass of a faded silk-handkerchief. The man was stout, undersized, and looked full thirty—the girl seemed scarcely nineteen—and from their dress and general appearance, the fosterer was sorely at a loss to decide to what grade of society the strangers appertained.

The male traveller’s dingy black frock had once seen better days, and his buff vest and nankeen unmentionables would have been all the better for a visit to the laundress. His hat was of that order denominated “shocking bad,” while it seemed doubtful that his boots would bear him to the end of his journey, and if they did, it would be by an expiring effort with which their history must close. His complexion was sallow, his features large, his whiskers black and bushy, he looked a dirty Jew; and certainly, “take him for all in all,” he was not the sort of person whom a gentleman would borrow money to entertain.

In every particular the girl was unlike her companion. She was pretty, tall, fair, and well formed. Her costume—a collection of faded finery—was tolerably clean; and, poverty apart, her air and address were those of one who had once moved in a different sphere, and, to judge by appearances, of one also, upon whom fortune had frowned severely.

On both sides some civilities were interchanged; and to an inquiry from the fosterer as to where entertainment and lodgings could be found, the man pointed out a solitary house at the distance of a mile, intimating that it was a carman’s stage held by travellers in high estimation. It was moreover kept by a buxom widow, and denominated.

Original

“If you want good fare, prime whisky, and a sound snooze, the Cock’s your place, sir. The landlady’s a trump, parlour snug, and not a flea if you searched the beds for a fortnight. Come, my love,” and he addressed his fair companion, who frowned an angry answer to this term of endearment,—“you and I are for the same crib, and we’ll give this gentleman our company.”

“This lady, sir, is my sister,—Miss Julia Montague. We are both professional,—known extensively in the dramatic world,—I, in the comic line—and Julia, in the musical. Bad spec at Granard—manager an ass,—played tragedy to please his swivel-eyed wife,—she Desdemona!—she be forked,—house didn’t draw money to pay candles,—manager, calls himself Mortimer, right name Malowney, bolted with any blunt there was—left the company without a tanner, and obliged July and myself to travel here tandem,—one leg before the other. Better luck again,—we’ll both be on the boards of Crow-street before Christmas—eh, July?”

When the Jew had named the connexion between himself and the wandering melodist, Mark Antony’s incredulous stare was returned by a look of contempt directed by the lady at her companion, which disclaimed relationship altogether; and a trifling incident ended the attempt at imposition.

A knot of the handkerchief which secured the joint-stock property of the comedian and the cantatrice had slipped unperceived, and when the accident was discovered, portions of the wardrobe were seen upon the road a hundred yards in the rear. Mr. Montague started off to recover the missing valuables, and Julia and Mark Antony were thus for a brief space left together. The opportunity was not neglected. The girl, after a searching glance behind, suddenly addressed the fosterer.

“Stranger, beware!—you know not the scoundrel who has been speaking to you. He’s all a lie,—a Jew, a sleight-of-hand man, a pickpocket, and a pugilist. Avoid him, or he’ll cheat you first, and bully you afterwards.” (A smile from Mark Antony intimated that on the latter score he was incredulous altogether.) “He followed me without my knowledge, and joined me on the road. Will you protect me to the next town? I would not trust myself another hour in that villain’s company. But soft—he comes,”—and, with ready tact, she changed the conversation to some common-place occurrence as the Jew hurried up and joined them. A few minutes more brought them to the Cock and Punch-bowl, which proved to be a low and straggling edifice situated at the junction of four roads.

As Mark Antony had rapidly adopted the prejudices of his fair monitress, he now regarded the Israelite with feelings of aversion and contempt. To fear he was a stranger—and the very knowledge that the Jew was a regular prize-fighter, probably occasioned on his part a more unequivocal display of personal antipathy. On entering the hostlerie, Mr. O’Toole asked for and obtained a private apartment—ordered supper for the Prima Donna and himself—intimating plainly to the fat landlady, that notwithstanding his celebrity in the comic line, Mr. Montague was not to be a member of the mess—and that, accordingly, the Jew and himself must remain what they had hitherto been—strangers to each other.

It was now twilight. The girl, but not without some difficulty, had recovered her bundle from the sleight-of-hand man, who, after several audacious attempts at a renewal of acquaintance, which on the part of the fosterer were as decidedly repulsed, was obliged to put up with a seat beside the kitchen fire, and there enjoy the tantalizing prospect of watching the progress of a supper at which his presence had been interdicted.

A noise outside attracted the fair vocalist and her protector to the window. It was a recruiting party en route to a neighbouring pattern, to pick up “food for powder.” There, a festival was held, where fame spoke truly, love and penance, whisky and broken heads, were all so agreeably united, that the man who could not be happy at Cahirmore must be suited only for “stratagems and treasons,” and a personage upon whom pleasure would be thrown away.

The charge of foot which halted at the Cock and Punchbowl consisted of a sergeant, whose waist the sash found difficulty to encompass—a brace of privates too dirty for the ranks, but who crimped inimitably—a boy, taller than his drum by the head—and a lean and sallow fifer who had counted forty summers; these with a couple of recruits completed this “gallant gathering.” On the shoulders of the stouter, the sergeant’s pack was strapped; while to the honourable keeping of the other, the commander’s bilboa was entrusted—a weapon, whose unstained steel had never yet been “incarnadined” with human gore. The soldiers presently ensconced themselves in a room beneath—Mrs. O’Leary paraded the expected supper—Mark Antony and his fair friend sealed themselves and commenced active operations, the fosterer eating as men eat who have walked thirty miles of Irish measurement, and the vocalist, as if to her, poor girl! for many a day a comfortable meal had been unknown.

In the mean time the rejected Israelite bade fair to sup with Duke Humphry. Admission to the state apartment was hopeless, for from thence he had been peremptorily excluded. In the kitchen, divers hints had been dropped that his absence would be preferable to his company; and as Jews don’t list, the soldiers repudiated him altogether. Deeply incensed against the wandering actress for deserting him in this “his hour of need,” and stung to the quick by the firmness and contempt with which Mark Antony repelled all advances towards intimacy, he secretly vowed vengeance against both. Luckily, a Hebrew’s resources procured him an unexpected supply. Some countrymen, returning from market, stopped to refresh themselves by the way. The Jew amused them with his tricks, and in return thimble-rigged as many sixpences from the farmers, as enabled him to obtain a lodging in the Cock and Punchbowl for the night.

When supper was removed, and Mrs. O’Leary had produced the necessary materials for finishing an evening comfortably, at the pressing invitation of her guest she sat down with the youthful travellers. From the first, Mark Antony had found favour in the widow’s sight, and a more extended acquaintance confirmed the early impression. Towards the girl Mrs. O’Leary evinced a kindly feeling, and proposed that as the house was crowded, the wayfarer should share her bed—an offer, by Miss Julia Montague, gratefully accepted.

The buxom widow was a fair specimen of an Irish hostess; and had her eyes not been as dark as a blackberry and her complexion a gipsy brown, the old alliteration, “fat, fair, and forty,” would have described her to a hair. Her comely countenance was rich with archness and espieglerie—and in Jack Falstaff’s vein a lover might have safely wooed her—You are merry, so am I. Ha, ha—then there’s more sympathy! “In vino veritas.” Hang that musty proverb! What’s wine to whisky punch? That is, indeed, the opener of the human heart. Love may be eschewed—but who is proof against poteeine? A hot tumbler would undo the caution of a Jesuit, and make a Trappist speak out like a man. Mrs. O’Leary felt the genial influence of mountain dew agreeably diluted; and in the brief colloquy that ensued, there were but few circumstances connected with the Cock and Punchbowl which remained a secret to the fosterer and his wandering friend.

“Mr. O’Toole—there’s an O before your name, I b’lieve—you’re kindly welcome. Here’s ye’r health—and bad luck to ye if I wish it. As I told ye, Mr. O’Leary—Lord rest his sowl!—was an ailin’ man, and might have been my father. Well, after the cold Christmas he went like snow off a ditch. The Lord sees he had the best of tratement in his last days, wid a grand wake and a ginteel funeral. I’m a lone woman three years come Patrick mass—and och! I have had my trouble. A woman’s helpless, Mr. O’Toole, and that ye know. Well—blessed be God! I’m well to do—owe nobody a rap—and my carakter’s at the defiance of the parish. But och! I’m lonely after all; and a pushin’ woman like me requires a man’s assistance. Not that I’m over anxious to get married; but if a young man, discreat and well-behaved, would—”

Here a furious knocking of pewter pots upon the tables underneath interrupted Mrs. O’Leary’s narration, and she made a hasty exit to attend those turbulent customers, with an intimation however that she would return anon, and make a clean breast touching her hymeneal intentions, should “a young man, discreat and well-behaved,” present himself.

It was quite evident from the hilarious revelry in the kitchen, that the company below had no sin of omission, as far as drinking went, to answer for. Indeed it was pretty apparent that they were set in for a regular carouse. The sergeant and his comrades prudently uniting mirth with business, had favoured the countrymen with their company, in the double hope of enjoying a potation, scot-free—and if luck were on their side, crimping a clod-hopper into the bargain. The antiquated fifer, on his “ear-piercing” instrument had executed “the Groves of Blarney,” with a variety of flourishes which elicited a thunder of applause. As to the commander, he was affability itself—spoke of his “feats of broil,” and recounted the numerous “battles, sieges, fortunes,” through which he had passed, with a vividness of description that made the very hair of the listeners stand on end. Nothing could be more glowing than the narrative, albeit, it was apocryphal entirely; for during his peaceful life, he, worthy man, had never witnessed a musket snapped in anger. At the request of a gentleman, whose solitary stripe announced him to he still on the lowest step of the ladder of preferment, the sergeant obliged the company with a rigmarole effusion which he was pleased to call a song; and it is only necessary to say, that the poetry and performance were worthy of each other.

THE SERGEANT’S SONG.

Great was the applause which the sergeant’s melody drew down, and, what was probably even more satisfactory to the honest gentleman, a loud demand arose for a fresh supply of “the raw material and the carouse was vigorously resumed. Left to themselves, the young travellers had talked over their meeting on the mountain, and spoke of their journey to the neighbouring town next day where their road-companionship was to terminate. The intended parting was not mentioned with indifference, for the poor girl sighed heavily, her face became sad, and her eyes filled fast. In a faction fight, where skulls were cracked like walnuts, Mark Antony was every inch a hero—but his heart was true Milesian, and a woman’s sorrow rendered it soft as a turnip. He took the wanderer’s hand affectionately, kissed away the tear that trickled down her cheek, and endeavoured to dispel her melancholy.

“Cheer up,” he said; “you have happier days before you, and youth enough to wait for them. How can I serve you, Julia.-’ I know an empty pocket makes a heavy heart—but we’ll share to the last shilling—” and quick as lightning a green silk purse that I had given to the fosterer the night we parted, was transferred from his pocket to the wanderer’s hand. “Come. Julia,” he continued, “will I bring you home?”

“Take half, at least,” exclaimed Mark Antony; “there’s only five pounds in notes, and three guineas and a half in gold. May’be it may carry ye to your friends—and if it won’t—I’ll list, and that will make up the difference.”

“Friends!” said the girl, bitterly; “I have no friends: I lost my mother when an infant; and the cruel desertion of my father broke the old soldier’s heart. Alas! I feel that I am left alone upon the earth, without one being who would care for me.”

“A sister, by Heaven!” cried the fosterer. “Am I not also a soldier’s orphan?”

“Why, ye thundering villain!” exclaimed Mrs. O’Leary, who had stolen softly up stairs, and caught the Jew with his ear at the key-hole, “Off wid ye, ye blackavised disciple. Bad luck attend ye, night an’ day, you ugly thief! Off, I say—” and, suiting the action to the word, she bestowed a heavy buffet upon the countenance of the Israelite that made him in no way desirous of abiding another visitation from the widow’s fist. “Well, dears!” said the jolly hostess as she bustled into the room: “may’be ye were courtin’ a bit, as young people will at times—and think of that black-muzzled ruffin lis’ning to every word ye sed! I wish he was clane out of the house, for he has the gallows in his faee.”

“I wish, indeed,” observed the girl, “that he was gone—I dread that man.”

“Arrah!” returned the burly widow, “don’t vex ye’rself about him: ye’r safe wid me—the devil a toe he’ll venture to put near my room. Ye’r tired, avourneein; and come away to ye’r-bed: and if you, Mr. O’Toole, will jist step down and take an air of the fire below, I’ll make ye a shake-down here as the house is crowded to the thatch.” Mark Antony accordingly bade his companion a good night, and descended to the kitchen, where, by a sort of common consent, the whole of the guests had united themselves for a general jollification. The whisky now seemed “uppermost,” and most of the party w’ere as it is termed in Ireland “the worse of liquor;” but the hilarity was as yet undisturbed,

The worthy sergeant who, like Bardolph, was “white-livered and red-faced,” with Pistol’s qualification of having “a killing tongue and quiet sword,” was evidently the lion of the evening; and being a romancer of the first magnitude, no man was better suited to fascinate a company who took delight in listening to deeds of arms. He was graciously pleased to reply to the inquiry of a recruit, who had expressed a strong curiosity touching the personal appearance of Napoleon le grand. Having bolted a dose of alcohol presented to him by a countryman, and deposited the pewter measure on the table, the commander thus modestly continued:—

“An’ so ye would like to know what Boney’s like? Well, the divil a man ye would meet in a day’s walk could tell you that same thing better. He has a regular gunpowder complexion, a look that would frighten a horse, and whiskers you could hang your hat upon. Father Abraham’s in the corner there—and ‘pon my conscience, honest man, ye would be the better of a barber—are but a joke to them.” And he pointed to the Jew.

“Before I was pris’ner five minutes, he sends an aidi-camp hot-foot—well, up I comes—for there was no use, you know, resistin’. At first he looked red-pepper at me: ‘Corp’lar Mulrooney,’ says he—and how the dickens he med my name out, I nivir could lam—‘Mulrooney,’ says he, ‘for once in ye’r life, tell truth, and shame the divil.—How many thousand strong are ye?’ ‘Twenty-five thousand,’ says I, strivin’ to dacave him. ‘Bad luck to the liars!’ says he. ‘Amen,’ says I, just givin’ the word back to him. ‘Arrah—come,’ says he, ‘don’t be makin’ a Judy Fitzsummon’s mother of ye’rself, but tell the truth, Mulrooney, and I’ll make a man of ye: an’ if ye don’t’—sw’aring an oath that I now disremimber, because it was in Frinch—‘I’ll blow the contents of this pistol thro’ your scull,’ pulling out one with a barrel like a blunderbuss. Well, I was rather scared; but, thinks I, there’s nothin’ like being bould. ‘Fire away,’ says I, ‘an’ put ye’r information in ye’r pocket afterwards; for it’s all ye’ll get from me.’ Bonypart looked bothered: ‘Be gogstay,” says he, to the aidicamp, ‘that’s cliver of the corp’lar. Let him off,’ says he; ‘an’ if there’s a drain of spirits in the bottle, give it to him, the crature, for the day’s hot.’ Wid that, he pulls out a thirty-shillin’ note. ‘Divil blister the rap I have more, or ye should have it,’ says he, shakes me dacently by the han’, and sends me clane back. ‘Pon me soul! Boney’s not a bad man, after all.”

The sergeant’s interview with Napoleon had been listened to with great attention; and at the production of the pistol of blunderbuss calibre, the recruits actually turned pale. The Israelite alone exhibited symptoms of incredulity, but what could be expected from an unbeliever? As to Mark Antony, he laughed outright;—however, that was an effect which some of the bloodiest exploits of the gallant sergeant frequently produced upon his auditory, and accordingly, he, “good easy man,” passed it by unnoticed. The symposium promised to terminate in harmony and peace, alas! how delusory that promise proved!