THE PREPARATION.
To prevent needless repetitions in my story, I shall not record here the conversation which passed between my friend Power and myself on the morning following at breakfast. Suffice it to say, that the plan proposed by him for my rescue was one I agreed to adopt, reserving to myself, in case of failure, apis allerof which I knew not the meaning, but of whose efficacy Power assured me I need not doubt.
“If all fail,” said he,—“if every bridge break down beneath you, and no road of escape be left, why, then, I believe you must have recourse to another alternative. Still I should wish to avoid it, if possible, and I put it to you, in honor, not to employ it unless as a last expedient. You promise me this?”
“Of course,” said I, with great anxiety for the dread final measure. “What is it?”
He paused, smiled dubiously, and resumed,—
“And, after all,—but, to be sure, there will not be need for it,—the other plan will do,—must do. Come, come, O’Malley, the admiralty say that nothing encourages drowning in the navy like a life-buoy. The men have such a prospect of being picked up that they don’t mind falling overboard; so, if I give you this life-preserver of mine, you’ll not swim an inch. Is it not so, eh?”
“Far from it,” said I. “I shall feel in honor bound to exert myself the more, because I now see how much it costs you to part with it.”
“Well, then, hear it. When everything fails; when all your resources are exhausted; when you have totally lost your memory, in fact, and your ingenuity in excuses say,—but mind, Charley, not till then,—say that you must consult your friend, Captain Power, of the 14th; that’s all.”
“And is this it?” said I, quite disappointed at the lame and impotent conclusion to all the high-sounding exordium; “is this all?”
“Yes,” said he, “that is all. But stop, Charley; is not that the major crossing the street there? Yes, to be sure it is; and, by Jove! he has got on the old braided frock this morning. Had you not told me one word of your critical position, I should have guessed there was something in the wind from that. That same vestment has caused many a stout heart to tremble that never quailed before a shot or shell.”
“How can that be? I should like to hear.”
“Why, my dear boy, that’s his explanation coat, as we called it at Gibraltar. He was never known to wear it except when asking some poor fellow’s ‘intentions.’ He would no more think of sporting it as an every-day affair, than the chief-justice would go cook-shooting in his black cap and ermine. Come, he is bound for your quarters, and as it will not answer our plans to let him see you now, you had better hasten down-stairs, and get round by the back way into George’s Street, and you’ll be at his house before he can return.”
Following Power’s directions, I seized my foraging-cap and got clear out of the premises before the major had reached them. It was exactly noon as I sounded my loud and now well-known summons at the major’s knocker. The door was quickly opened; but instead of dashing up-stairs, four steps at a time, as was my wont, to the drawing-room, I turned short into the dingy-looking little parlor on the right, and desired Matthew, the venerable servitor of the house, to say that I wished particularly to see Mrs. Dalrymple for a few minutes, if the hour were not inconvenient.
There was something perhaps of excitement in my manner, some flurry in my look, or some trepidation in my voice, or perhaps it was the unusual hour, or the still more remarkable circumstance of my not going at once to the drawing-room, that raised some doubts in Matthew’s mind as to the object of my visit; and instead of at once complying with my request to inform Mrs. Dalrymple that I was there, he cautiously closed the door, and taking a quick but satisfactory glance round the apartment to assure himself that we were alone, he placed his back against it and heaved a deep sigh.
We were both perfectly silent: I in total amazement at what the old man could possibly mean; he, following up the train of his own thoughts, comprehended little or nothing of my surprise, and evidently was so engrossed by his reflections that he had neither ears nor eyes for aught around him. There was a most singular semi-comic expression in the old withered face that nearly made me laugh at first; but as I continued to look steadily at it, I perceived that, despite the long-worn wrinkles that low Irish drollery and fun had furrowed around the angles of his mouth, the real character of his look was one of sorrowful compassion.
Doubtless, my readers have read many interesting narratives wherein the unconscious traveller in some remote land has been warned of a plan to murder him, by some mere passing wink, a look, a sign, which some one, less steeped in crime, less hardened in iniquity than his fellows, has ventured for his rescue. Sometimes, according to the taste of the narrator, the interesting individual is an old woman, sometimes a young one, sometimes a black-bearded bandit, sometimes a child; and not unfrequently, a dog is humane enough to do this service. One thing, however, never varies,—be the agent biped or quadruped, dumb or speechful, young or old, the stranger invariably takes the hint, and gets off scott free for his sharpness. This never-varying trick on the doomed man, I had often been sceptical enough to suspect; however, I had not been many minutes a spectator of the old man’s countenance, when I most thoroughly recanted my errors, and acknowledged myself wrong. If ever the look of a man conveyed a warning, his did; but there was more in it than even that,—there was a tone of sad and pitiful compassion, such as an old gray-bearded rat might be supposed to put on at seeing a young and inexperienced one opening the hinge of an iron trap, to try its efficacy upon his neck. Many a little occasion had presented itself, during my intimacy with the family, of doing Matthew some small services, of making him some trifling presents; so that, when he assumed before me the gesture and look I have mentioned, I was not long in deciphering his intentions.
“Matthew!” screamed a sharp voice which I recognized at once for that of Mrs. Dalrymple. “Matthew! Where is the old fool?”
But Matthew heard not, or heeded not.
“Matthew! Matthew! I say.”
“I’m comin’, ma’am,” said he, with a sigh, as, opening the parlor-door, he turned upon me one look of such import that only the circumstances of my story can explain its force, or my reader’s own ingenious imagination can supply.
“Never fear, my good old friend,” said I, grasping his hand warmly, and leaving a guinea in the palm,—“never fear.”
“God grant it, sir!” said he, setting on his wig in preparation for his appearance in the drawing-room.
“Matthew! The old wretch!”
“Mr. O’Malley,” said the often-called Matthew, as opening the door, he announced me unexpectedly among the ladies there assembled, who, not hearing of my approach, were evidently not a little surprised and astonished. Had I been really the enamored swain that the Dalrymple family were willing to believe, I half suspect that the prospect before me might have cured me of my passion. A round bullet-head,papilloté, with the “Cork Observer,” where still-born babes and maids-of-all-work were descanted upon in very legible type, was now the substitute for the classic front and Italian ringlets ofla belleMatilda; while the chaste Fanny herself, whose feet had been a fortune for a statuary, was, in the most slatternly and slipshod attire, pacing the room in a towering rage, at some thing, place, or person, unknown (to me). If the ballet-master at theAcadémiecould only learn to get his imps, demons, angels, and goblins “off” half as rapidly as the two young ladies retreated on my being announced, I answer for the piece so brought out having a run for half the season. Before my eyes had regained their position parallel to the plane of the horizon, they were gone, and I found myself alone with Mrs. Dalrymple. Now, she stood her ground, partly to cover the retreat of the main body, partly, too, because—representing the baggage wagons, ammunition stores, hospital, staff, etc.—her retirement from the field demanded more time and circumspection than the light brigade.
Let not my readers suppose that themèreDalrymple was so perfectly faultless in costume that her remaining was a matter of actual indifference; far from it. She evidently had a struggle for it; but a sense of duty decided her, and as Ney doggedly held back to cover the retreating forces on the march from Moscow, so did she resolutely lurk behind till the last flutter of the last petticoat assured her that the fugitives were safe. Then did she hesitate for a moment what course to take; but as I assumed my chair beside her, she composedly sat down, and crossing her hands before her, waited for an explanation of this ill-timed visit.
Had the Horse Guards, in the plenitude of their power and the perfection of their taste, ordained that the 79th and 42d Regiments should in future, in lieu of their respective tartans, wear flannel kilts and black worsted hose, I could readily have fallen into the error of mistaking Mrs. Dalrymple for a field officer in the new regulation dress; the philabeg finding no mean representation in a capacious pincushion that hung down from her girdle, while a pair of shears, not scissors, corresponded to the dirk. After several ineffectual efforts on her part to make her vestment (I know not its fitting designation) cover more of her legs than its length could possibly effect, and after some most bland smiles and half blushes atdishabille, etc., were over, and that I had apologized most humbly for the unusually early hour of my call, I proceeded to open my negotiations, and unfurl my banner for the fray.
“The old ‘Racehorse’ has arrived at last,” said I, with a half-sigh, “and I believe that we shall not obtain a very long time for our leave-taking; so that, trespassing upon your very great kindness, I have ventured upon an early call.”
“The ‘Racehorse,’ surely can’t sail to-morrow,” said Mrs. Dalrymple, whose experience of such matters made her a very competent judge; “her stores—”
“Are taken in already,” said I; “and an order from the Horse Guards commands us to embark in twenty-four hours; so that, in fact, we scarcely have time to look about us.”
“Have you seen the major?” inquired Mrs. Dalrymple, eagerly.
“Not to-day,” I replied, carelessly; “but, of course, during the morning we are sure to meet. I have many thanks yet to give him for all his most kind attentions.”
“I know he is most anxious to see you,” said Mrs. Dalrymple, with a very peculiar emphasis, and evidently desiring that I should inquire the reasons of this anxiety. I, however, most heroically forbore indulging my curiosity, and added that I should endeavor to find him on my way to the barracks; and then, hastily looking at my watch, I pronounced it a full hour later than it really was, and promising to spend the evening—my last evening—with them, I took my leave and hurried away, in no small flurry to be once more out of reach of Mrs. Dalrymple’s fire, which I every moment expected to open upon me.
THE SUPPER.
Power and I dined togethertête-à-têteat the hotel, and sat chatting over my adventures with the Dalrymples till nearly nine o’clock.
“Come, Charley,” said he, at length, “I see your eye wandering very often towards the timepiece; another bumper, and I’ll let you off. What shall it be?”
“What you like,” said I, upon whom a share of three bottles of strong claret had already made a very satisfactory impression.
“Then champagne for thecoup-de-grace. Nothing like yourvin mousseuxfor a critical moment,—every bubble that rises sparkling to the surface prompts some bright thought, or elicits some brilliant idea, that would only have been drowned in your more sober fluids. Here’s to the girl you love, whoever she be.”
“To her bright eyes, then, be it,” said I, clearing off a brimming goblet of nearly half the bottle, while my friend Power seemed multiplied into any given number of gentlemen standing amidst something like a glass manufactory of decanters.
“I hope you feel steady enough for this business,” said my friend, examining me closely with the candle.
“I’m an archdeacon,” muttered I, with one eye involuntarily closing.
“You’ll not let them double on you!”
“Trust me, old boy,” said I, endeavoring to look knowing.
“I think you’ll do,” said he, “so now march. I’ll wait for you here, and we’ll go on board together; for old Bloater the skipper says he’ll certainly weigh by daybreak.”
“Till then,” said I, as opening the door, I proceeded very cautiously to descend the stairs, affecting all the time considerablenonchalance, and endeavoring, as well as my thickened utterance would permit, to hum:—
“Oh, love is the soul of an Irish dragoon.”
If I was not in the most perfect possession of my faculties in the house, the change to the open air certainly but little contributed to their restoration; and I scarcely felt myself in the street when my brain became absolutely one whirl of maddened and confused excitement. Time and space are nothing to a man thus enlightened, and so they appeared to me; scarcely a second had elapsed when I found myself standing in the Dalrymples’ drawing-room.
If a few hours had done much to metamorphoseme, certes, they had done something for my fair friends also; anything more unlike what they appeared in the morning can scarcely be imagined. Matilda in black, with her hair in heavy madonna bands upon her fair cheek, now paler even than usual, never seemed so handsome; while Fanny, in a light-blue dress, with blue flowers in her hair, and a blue sash, looked the most lovely piece of coquetry ever man set his eyes upon. The old major, too, was smartened up, and put into an old regimental coat that he had worn during the siege of Gibraltar; and lastly, Mrs. Dalrymple herself was attired in a very imposing costume that made her, to my not over-accurate judgment, look very like an elderly bishop in a flame-colored cassock. Sparks was the only stranger, and wore upon his countenance, as I entered, a look of very considerable embarrassment that even my thick-sightedness could not fail of detecting.
Parlez-moi de l’amitié, my friends. Talk to me of the warm embrace of your earliest friend, after years of absence; the cordial and heartfelt shake hands of your old school companion, when in after years, a chance meeting has brought you together, and you have had time and opportunity for becoming distinguished and in repute, and are rather a good hit to be known to than otherwise; of the close grip you give your second when he comes up to say, that the gentleman with the loaded detonator opposite won’t fire, that he feels he’s in the wrong. Any or all of these together, very effective and powerful though they be, are light in the balance when compared with the two-handed compression you receive from the gentleman that expects you to marry one of his daughters.
“My dear O’Malley, how goes it? Thought you’d never come,” said he, still holding me fast and looking me full in the face, to calculate the extent to which my potations rendered his flattery feasible.
“Hurried to death with preparations, I suppose,” said Mrs. Dalrymple, smiling blandly. “Fanny dear, some tea for him.”
“Oh, Mamma, he does not like all that sugar; surely not,” said she, looking up with a most sweet expression, as though to say, “I at least know his tastes.”
“I believed you were going without seeing us,” whispered Matilda, with a very glassy look about the corner of her eyes.
Eloquence was not just then my forte, so that I contented myself with a very intelligible look at Fanny, and a tender squeeze of Matilda’s hand, as I seated myself at the table.
Scarcely had I placed myself at the tea-table, with Matilda beside and Fanny opposite me, each vying with the other in their delicate and kind attentions, when I totally forgot all my poor friend Power’s injunctions and directions for my management. It is true, I remembered that there was a scrape of some kind or other to be got out of, and one requiring some dexterity, too; but what or with whom I could not for the life of me determine. What the wine had begun, the bright eyes completed; and amidst the witchcraft of silky tresses and sweet looks, I lost all my reflection, till the impression of an impending difficulty remained fixed in my mind, and I tortured my poor, weak, and erring intellect to detect it. At last, and by a mere chance, my eyes fell upon Sparks; and by what mechanism I contrived it, I know not, but I immediately saddled him with the whole of my annoyances, and attributed to him and to his fault any embarrassment I labored under.
The physiological reason of the fact I’m very ignorant of, but for the truth and frequency I can well vouch, that there are certain people, certain faces, certain voices, certain whiskers, legs, waistcoats, and guard-chains, that inevitably produce the most striking effects upon the brain of a gentleman already excited by wine, and not exactly cognizant of his own peculiar fallacies.
These effects are not produced merely among those who are quarrelsome in their cups, for I call the whole 14th to witness that I am not such; but to any person so disguised, the inoffensiveness of the object is no security on the other hand,—for I once knew an eight-day clock kicked down a barrack stairs by an old Scotch major, because he thought it was laughing at him. To this source alone, whatever it be, can I attribute the feeling of rising indignation with which I contemplated the luckless cornet, who, seated at the fire, unnoticed and uncared for, seemed a very unworthy object to vent anger or ill-temper upon.
“Mr. Sparks, I fear,” said I, endeavoring at the time to call up a look of very sovereign contempt,—“Mr. Sparks, I fear, regards my visit here in the light of an intrusion.”
Had poor Mr. Sparks been told to proceed incontinently up the chimney before him, he could not have looked more aghast. Reply was quite out of his power. So sudden and unexpectedly was this charge of mine made that he could only stare vacantly from one to the other; while I, warming with my subject, and perhaps—but I’ll not swear it—stimulated by a gentle pressure from a soft hand near me, continued:—
“If he thinks for one moment that my attentions in this family are in any way to be questioned by him, I can only say—”
“My dear O’Malley, my dear boy!” said the major, with the look of a father-in-law in his eye.
“The spirit of an officer and a gentleman spoke there,” said Mrs. Dalrymple, now carried beyond all prudence by the hope that my attack might arouse my dormant friend into a counter-declaration; nothing, however, was further from poor Sparks, who began to think he had been unconsciously drinking tea with five lunatics.
“If he supposes,” said I, rising from my chair, “that his silence will pass with me as any palliation—”
“Oh, dear! oh, dear! there will be a duel. Papa, dear, why don’t you speak to Mr. O’Malley?”
“There now, O’Malley, sit down. Don’t you see he is quite in error?”
“Then let him say so,” said I, fiercely.
“Ah, yes, to be sure,” said Fanny. “Do say it; say anything he likes, Mr. Sparks.”
“I must say,” said Mrs. Dalrymple, “however sorry I may feel in my own house to condemn any one, that Mr. Sparks is very much in the wrong.”
Poor Sparks looked like a man in a dream.
“If he will tell Charles,—Mr. O’Malley, I mean,” said Matilda, blushing scarlet, “that he meant nothing by what he said—”
“But I never spoke, never opened my lips!” cried out the wretched man, at length sufficiently recovered to defend himself.
“Oh, Mr. Sparks!”
“Oh, Mr. Sparks!”
“Oh, Mr. Sparks!” chorussed the three ladies.
While the old major brought up the rear with an “Oh, Sparks, I must say—”
“Then, by all the saints in the calendar, I must be mad,” said he; “but if I have said anything to offend you, O’Malley, I am sincerely sorry for it.”
“That will do, sir,” said I, with a look of royal condescension at theamendeI considered as somewhat late in coming, and resumed my seat.
This littleintermezzo, it might be supposed, was rather calculated to interrupt the harmony of our evening. Not so, however. I had apparently acquitted myself like a hero, and was evidently in a white heat, in which I could be fashioned into any shape. Sparks was humbled so far that he would probably feel it a relief to make any proposition; so that by our opposite courses we had both arrived at a point at which all the dexterity and address of the family had been long since aiming without success. Conversation then resumed its flow, and in a few minutes every trace of our latefracashad disappeared.
By degrees I felt myself more and more disposed to turn my attention towards Matilda, and dropping my voice into a lower tone, opened a flirtation of a most determined kind. Fanny had, meanwhile, assumed a place beside Sparks, and by the muttered tones that passed between them, I could plainly perceive they were similarly occupied. The major took up the “Southern Reporter,” of which he appeared deep in the contemplation, while Mrs. Dal herself buried her head in her embroidery and neither heard nor saw anything around her.
I know, unfortunately, but very little what passed between myself and my fair companion; I can only say that when supper was announced at twelve (an hour later than usual), I was sitting upon the sofa with my arm round her waist, my cheek so close that already her lovely tresses brushed my forehead, and her breath fanned my burning brow.
“Supper, at last,” said the major, with a loud voice, to arouse us from our trance of happiness without taking any mean opportunity of looking unobserved. “Supper, Sparks, O’Malley; come now, it will be some time before we all meet this way again.”
“Perhaps not so long, after all,” said I, knowingly.
“Very likely not,” echoed Sparks, in the same key.
“I’ve proposed for Fanny,” said he, whispering in my ear.
“Matilda’s mine,” replied I, with the look of an emperor.
“A word with you, Major,” said Sparks, his eye flashing with enthusiasm, and his cheek scarlet. “One word,—I’ll not detain you.”
They withdrew into a corner for a few seconds, during which Mrs. Dalrymple amused herself by wondering what the secret could be, why Mr. Sparks couldn’t tell her, and Fanny meanwhile pretended to look for something at a side table, and never turned her head round.
“Then give me your hand,” said the major, as he shook Sparks’s with a warmth of whose sincerity there could be no question. “Bess, my love,” said he, addressing his wife. The remainder was lost in a whisper; but whatever it was, it evidently redounded to Sparks’s credit, for the next moment a repetition of the hand-shaking took place, and Sparks looked the happiest of men.
“A mon tour,” thought I, “now,” as I touched the major’s arm, and led him towards the window. What I said may be one day matter for Major Dalrymple’s memoirs, if he ever writes them; but for my part I have not the least idea. I only know that while I was yet speaking he called over Mrs. Dal, who, in a frenzy of joy, seized me in her arms and embraced me. After which, I kissed her, shook hands with the major, kissed Matilda’s hand, and laughed prodigiously, as though I had done something confoundedly droll,—a sentiment evidently participated in by Sparks, who laughed too, as did the others; and a merrier, happier party never sat down to supper.
“Make your company pleased with themselves,” says Mr. Walker, in hisOriginalwork upon dinner-giving, “and everything goes on well.” Now, Major Dalrymple, without having read the authority in question, probably because it was not written at the time, understood the principle fully as well as the police-magistrate, and certainly was a proficient in the practice of it.
To be sure, he possessed one grand requisite for success,—he seemed most perfectly happy himself. There was thatair dégagéabout him which, when an old man puts it on among his juniors, is so very attractive. Then the ladies, too, were evidently well pleased; and the usually austere mamma had relaxed her “rigid front” into a smile in which anyhabituéof the house could have read our fate.
We ate, we drank, we ogled, smiled, squeezed hands beneath the table, and, in fact, so pleasant a party had rarely assembled round the major’s mahogany. As for me, I made a full disclosure of the most burning love, backed by a resolve to marry my fair neighbor, and settle upon her a considerably larger part of my native county than I had ever even rode over. Sparks, on the other side, had opened his fire more cautiously, but whether taking courage from my boldness, or perceiving with envy the greater estimation I was held in, was now going the pace fully as fast as myself, and had commenced explanations of his intentions with regard to Fanny that evidently satisfied her friends. Meanwhile the wine was passing very freely, and the hints half uttered an hour before began now to be more openly spoken and canvassed.
Sparks and I hob-nobbed across the table and looked unspeakable things at each other; the girls held down their heads; Mrs. Dal wiped her eyes; and the major pronounced himself the happiest father in Europe.
It was now wearing late, or rather early; some gray streaks of dubious light were faintly forcing their way through the half-closed curtains, and the dread thought of parting first presented itself. A cavalry trumpet, too, at this moment sounded a call that aroused us from our trance of pleasure, and warned us that our moments were few. A dead silence crept over all; the solemn feeling which leave-taking ever inspires was uppermost, and none spoke. The major was the first to break it.
“O’Malley, my friend, and you, Mr. Sparks; I must have a word with you, boys, before we part.”
“Here let it be, then, Major,” said I, holding his arm as he turned to leave the room,—“here, now; we are all so deeply interested, no place is so fit.”
“Well, then,” said the major, “as you desire it, now that I’m to regard you both in the light of my sons-in-law,—at least, as pledged to become so,—it is only fair as respects—”
“I see,—I understand perfectly,” interrupted I, whose passion for conducting the whole affair myself was gradually gaining on me. “What you mean is, that we should make known our intentions before some mutual friends ere we part; eh, Sparks? eh, Major?”
“Right, my boy,—right on every point.”
“Well, then, I thought of all that; and if you’ll just send your servant over to my quarters for our captain,—he’s the fittest person, you know, at such a time—”
“How considerate!” said Mrs. Dalrymple.
“How perfectly just his idea is!” said the major.
“We’ll then, in his presence, avow our present and unalterable determination as regards your fair daughters; and as the time is short—”
Here I turned towards Matilda, who placed her arm within mine; Sparks possessed himself of Fanny’s hand, while the major and his wife consulted for a few seconds.
“Well, O’Malley, all you propose is perfect. Now, then, for the captain. Who shall he inquire for?”
Charles Pops the Question.
“Oh, an old friend of yours,” said I, jocularly; “you’ll be glad to see him.”
“Indeed!” said all together.
“Oh, yes, quite a surprise, I’ll warrant it.”
“Who can it be? Who on earth is it?”
“You can’t guess,” added I, with a very knowing look. “Knew you at Corfu; a very intimate friend, indeed, if he tell the truth.”
A look of something like embarrassment passed around the circle at these words, while I, wishing to end the mystery, resumed:—
“Come, then, who can be so proper for all parties, at a moment like this, as our mutual friend Captain Power?”
Had a shell fallen into the cold grouse pie in the midst of us, scattering death and destruction on every side, the effect could scarcely have been more frightful than that my last words produced. Mrs. Dalrymple fell with a sough upon the floor, motionless as a corpse; Fanny threw herself, screaming, upon a sofa; Matilda went off into strong hysterics upon the hearth-rug; while the major, after giving me a look a maniac might have envied, rushed from the room in search of his pistols with a most terrific oath to shoot somebody, whether Sparks or myself, or both of us, on his return, I cannot say. Fanny’s sobs and Matilda’s cries, assisted by a drumming process by Mrs. Dal’s heels upon the floor, made a most infernal concert and effectually prevented anything like thought or reflection; and in all probability so overwhelmed was I at the sudden catastrophe I had so innocently caused, I should have waited in due patience for the major’s return, had not Sparks seized my arm, and cried out,—
“Run for it, O’Malley; cut like fun, my boy, or we’re done for.”
“Run; why? What for? Where?” said I, stupefied by the scene before me.
“Here he is!” called out Sparks, as throwing up the window, he sprang out upon the stone sill, and leaped into the street. I followed mechanically, and jumped after him, just as the major had reached the window. A ball whizzed by me, that soon determined my further movements; so, putting on all speed, I flew down the street, turned the corner, and regained the hotel breathless and without a hat, while Sparks arrived a moment later, pale as a ghost, and trembling like an aspen-leaf.
“Safe, by Jove!” said Sparks, throwing himself into a chair, and panting for breath.
“Safe, at last,” said I, without well knowing why or for what.
“You’ve had a sharp run of it, apparently,” said Power, coolly, and without any curiosity as to the cause; “and now, let us on board; there goes the trumpet again. The skipper is a surly old fellow, and we must not lose his tide for him.” So saying, he proceeded to collect his cloaks, cane, etc., and get ready for departure.
THE VOYAGE.
When I awoke from the long, sound sleep which succeeded my last adventure, I had some difficulty in remembering where I was or how I had come there. From my narrow berth I looked out upon the now empty cabin, and at length some misty and confused sense of my situation crept slowly over me. I opened the little shutter beside me and looked out. The bold headlands of the southern coast were frowning in sullen and dark masses about a couple of miles distant, and I perceived that we were going fast through the water, which was beautifully calm and still. I now looked at my watch; it was past eight o’clock; and as it must evidently be evening, from the appearance of the sky, I felt that I had slept soundly for above twelve hours.
In the hurry of departure the cabin had not been set to rights, and there lay every species of lumber and luggage in all imaginable confusion. Trunks, gun-cases, baskets of eggs, umbrellas, hampers of sea-store, cloaks, foraging-caps, maps, and sword-belts were scattered on every side,—while thedébrisof a dinner, not over-remarkable for its propriety in table equipage, added to the ludicrous effect. The heavy tramp of a foot overhead denoted the step of some one taking his short walk of exercise; while the rough voice of the skipper, as he gave the word to “Go about!” all convinced me that we were at last under way, and off to “the wars.”
The confusion our last evening on shore produced in my brain was such that every effort I made to remember anything about it only increased my difficulty, and I felt myself in a web so tangled and inextricable that all endeavor to escape free was impossible. Sometimes I thought that I had really married Matilda Dalrymple; then, I supposed that the father had called me out, and wounded me in a duel; and finally, I had some confused notion about a quarrel with Sparks, but what for, when, and how it ended, I knew not. How tremendously tipsy I must have been! was the only conclusion I could draw from all these conflicting doubts; and after all, it was the only thing like fact that beamed upon my mind. How I had come on board and reached my berth was a matter I reserved for future inquiry, resolving that about the real history of my last night on shore I would ask no questions, if others were equally disposed to let it pass in silence.
I next began to wonder if Mike had looked after all my luggage, trunks, etc., and whether he himself had been forgotten in our hasty departure. About this latter point I was not destined for much doubt; for a well-known voice, from the foot of the companion-ladder, at once proclaimed my faithful follower, and evidenced his feelings at his departure from his home and country.
Mr. Free was, at the time I mention, gathered up like a ball opposite a small, low window that looked upon the bluff headlands now fast becoming dim and misty as the night approached. He was apparently in low spirits, and hummed in a species of low, droning voice, the following ballad, at the end of each verse of which came an Irish chorus which, to the erudite in such matters, will suggest the air of Moddirederoo:—
MICKEY FREE’S LAMENT.Then fare ye well, ould Erin dear;To part, my heart does ache well:From Carrickfergus to Cape Clear,I’ll never see your equal.And though to foreign parts we’re bound,Where cannibals may ate us,We’ll ne’er forget the holy groundOf potteen and potatoes.Moddirederoo aroo, aroo, etc.When good Saint Patrick banished frogs,And shook them from his garment,He never thought we’d go abroad,To live upon such varmint;Nor quit the land where whiskey grewTo wear King George’s button,Take vinegar for mountain dew,And toads for mountain mutton.Moddirederoo aroo, aroo, etc.
“I say, Mike, stop that confounded keen, and tell me where are we?”
“Off the ould head of Kinsale, sir.”
“Where is Captain Power?”
“Smoking a cigar on deck, with the captain, sir.”
“And Mr. Sparks?”
“Mighty sick in his own state-room. Oh, but it’s himself has enough of glory—bad luck to it!—by this time. He’d make your heart break to look at him.”
“Who have you got on board besides?”
“The adjutant’s here, sir; and an old gentleman they call the major.”
“Not Major Dalrymple?” said I, starting up with terror at the thought, “eh, Mike?”
“No, sir, another major; his name is Mulroon, or Mundoon, or something like that.”
“Monsoon, you son of a lumper potato,” cried out a surly, gruff voice from a berth opposite. “Monsoon. Who’s at the other side?”
“Mr. O’Malley, 14th,” said I, by way of introduction.
“My service to you, then,” said the voice. “Going to join your regiment?”
“Yes; and you, are you bound on a similar errand?”
“No, Heaven be praised! I’m attached to the commissariat, and only going to Lisbon. Have you had any dinner?”
“Not a morsel; have you?”
“No more than yourself; but I always lie by for three or four days this way, till I get used to the confounded rocking and pitching, and with a little grog and some sleep, get over the time gayly enough. Steward, another tumbler like the last; there—very good—that will do. Your good health, Mr.—what was it you said?”
“O’Malley.”
“O’Malley—your good health! Good-night.” And so ended our brief colloquy, and in a few minutes more, a very decisive snore pronounced my friend to be fulfilling his precept for killing the hours.
I now made the effort to emancipate myself from my crib, and at last succeeded in getting on the floor, where, after onechassezat a small looking-glass opposite, followed by a very impetuous rush at a little brass stove, in which I was interrupted by a trunk and laid prostrate, I finally got my clothes on, and made my way to the deck. Little attuned as was my mind at the moment to admire anything like scenery, it was impossible to be unmoved by the magnificent prospect before me. It was a beautiful evening in summer; the sun had set above an hour before, leaving behind him in the west one vast arch of rich and burnished gold, stretching along the whole horizon, and tipping all the summits of the heavy rolling sea, as it rolled on, unbroken by foam or ripple, in vast moving mountains, from the far coast of Labrador. We were already in blue water, though the bold cliffs that were to form our departing point were but a few miles to leeward. There lay the lofty bluff of Old Kinsale, whose crest, overhanging, peered from a summit of some hundred feet into the deep water that swept its rocky base, many a tangled lichen and straggling bough trailing in the flood beneath. Here and there upon the coast a twinkling gleam proclaimed the hut of the fisherman, whose swift hookers had more than once shot by us and disappeared in a moment. The wind, which began to fall at sunset, freshened as the moon rose; and the good ship, bending to the breeze, lay gently over, and rushed through the waters with a sound of gladness. I was alone upon the deck. Power and the captain, whom I expected to have found, had disappeared somehow, and I was, after all, not sorry to be left to my own reflections uninterrupted.
My thoughts turned once more to my home,—to my first, my best, earliest friend, whose hearth I had rendered lonely and desolate, and my heart sank within me as I remembered it. How deeply I reproached myself for the selfish impetuosity with which I had ever followed any rising fancy, any new and sudden desire, and never thought of him whose every hope was in, whose every wish was for me. Alas! alas, my poor uncle! how gladly would I resign every prospect my soldier’s life may hold out, with all its glittering promise, and all the flattery of success, to be once more beside you; to feel your warm and manly grasp; to see your smile; to hear your voice; to be again where all our best feelings are born and nurtured, our cares assuaged, our joys more joyed in, and our griefs more wept,—at home! These very words have more music to my ears than all the softest strains that ever siren sung. They bring us back to all we have loved, by ties that are never felt but through such simple associations. And in the earlier memories called up, our childish feelings come back once more to visit us like better spirits, as we walk amidst the dreary desolation that years of care and uneasiness have spread around us.
Wretched must he be who ne’er has felt such bliss; and thrice happy he who, feeling it, knows that still there lives for him that same early home, with all its loved inmates, its every dear and devoted object waiting his coming and longing for his approach.
Such were my thoughts as I stood gazing at the bold line of coast now gradually growing more and more dim while evening fell, and we continued to stand farther out to sea. So absorbed was I all this time in my reflections, that I never heard the voices which now suddenly burst upon my ears quite close beside me. I turned, and saw for the first time that at the end of the quarter-deck stood what is called a roundhouse, a small cabin, from which the sounds in question proceeded. I walked gently forward and peeped in, and certainly anything more in contrast with my late revery need not be conceived. There sat the skipper, a bluff, round-faced, jolly-looking little tar, mixing a bowl of punch at a table, at which sat my friend Power, the adjutant, and a tall, meagre-looking Scotchman, whom I once met in Cork, and heard that he was the doctor of some infantry regiment. Two or three black bottles, a paper of cigars, and a tallow candle were all the table equipage; but certainly the party seemed not to want for spirits and fun, to judge from the hearty bursts of laughing that every moment pealed forth, and shook the little building that held them. Power, as usual with him, seemed to be taking the lead, and was evidently amusing himself with the peculiarities of his companions.
“Come, Adjutant, fill up; here’s to the campaign before us. We, at least, have nothing but pleasure in the anticipation; no lovely wife behind; no charming babes to fret and be fretted for, eh?”
“Vara true,” said the doctor, who was mated with atartar, “ye maun have less regrets at leaving hame; but a married man is no’ entirely denied his ain consolations.”
“Good sense in that,” said the skipper; “a wide berth and plenty of sea room are not bad things now and then.”
“Is that your experience also?” said Power, with a knowing look. “Come, come, Adjutant, we’re not so ill off, you see; but, by Jove, I can’t imagine how it is a man ever comes to thirty without having at least one wife,—without counting his colonial possessions of course.”
“Yes,” said the adjutant, with a sigh, as he drained his glass to the bottom. “It is devilish strange,—woman, lovely woman!” Here he filled and drank again, as though he had been proposing a toast for his own peculiar drinking.
“I say, now,” resumed Power, catching at once that there was something working in his mind,—“I say, now, how happened it that you, a right good-looking, soldier-like fellow, that always made his way among the fair ones, with that confounded roguish eye and slippery tongue,—how the deuce did it come to pass that you never married?”
“I’ve been more than once on the verge of it,” said the adjutant, smiling blandly at the flattery.
“And nae bad notion yours just to stay there,” said the doctor, with a very peculiar contortion of countenance.
“No pleasing you, no contenting a fellow like you,” said Power, returning to the charge; “that’s the thing; you get a certain ascendancy; you have a kind of success that renders you, as the French say,téte montée, and you think no woman rich enough or good-looking enough or big enough.”
“No; by Jove you’re wrong,” said the adjutant, swallowing the bait, hook and all,—“quite wrong there; for some how, all my life, I was decidedly susceptible. Not that I cared much for your blushing sixteen, or budding beauties in white muslin, fresh from a back-board and a governess; no, my taste inclined rather to the more sober charms of two or three-and-thirty, theembonpoint, a good foot and ankle, a sensible breadth about the shoulders—”
“Somewhat Dutch-like, I take it,” said the skipper, puffing out a volume of smoke; “a little bluff in the bows, and great stowage, eh?”
“You leaned then towards the widows?” said Power.
“Exactly; I confess, a widow always was my weakness. There was something I ever liked in the notion of a woman who had got over all the awkward girlishness of early years, and had that self-possession which habit and knowledge of the world confer, and knew enough of herself to understand what she really wished, and where she would really go.”
“Like the trade winds,” puffed the skipper.
“Then, as regards fortune, they have a decided superiority over the spinster class. I defy any man breathing,—let him be half police-magistrate, half chancellor,—to find out the figure of a young lady’s dower. On your first introduction to the house, some kind friend whispers, ‘Go it, old boy; forty thousand, not a penny less.’ A few weeks later, as the siege progresses, a maiden aunt, disposed to puffing, comes down to twenty; this diminishes again one half, but then ‘the money is in bank stock, hard Three-and-a-Half.’ You go a little farther, and as you sit one day over your wine with papa, he certainly promulgates the fact that his daughter has five thousand pounds, two of which turn out to be in Mexican bonds, and three in an Irish mortgage.”
“Happy for you,” interrupted Power, “that it be not in Galway, where a proposal to foreclose, would be a signal for your being called out and shot without benefit of clergy.”
“Bad luck to it, for Galway,” said the adjutant. “I was nearly taken in there once to marry a girl that her brother-in-law swore had eight hundred a year; and it came out afterwards that so she had, but it was for one year only; and he challenged me for doubting his word too.”
“There’s an old formula for finding out an Irish fortune,” says Power, “worth, all the algebra they ever taught in Trinity. Take the half of the assumed sum, and divide it by three; the quotient will be a flattering representative of the figure sought for.”
“Not in the north,” said the adjutant, firmly,—“not in the north, Power. They are all well off there. There’s a race of canny, thrifty, half-Scotch niggers,—your pardon, Doctor, they are all Irish,—linen-weaving, Presbyterian, yarn-factoring, long-nosed, hard-drinking fellows, that lay by rather a snug thing now and then. Do you know, I was very near it once in the north. I’ve half a mind to tell you the story; though, perhaps, you’ll laugh at me.”
The whole party at once protested that nothing could induce them to deviate so widely from the line of propriety; and the skipper having mixed a fresh bowl and filled all the glasses round, the cigars were lighted, and the adjutant began.