ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'T'
he buzz of a village, like the hum of a city, represents a very wonderful variety of human accent and feeling. It is marvellous how few families thrown together will suffice to furnish forth thisdubia cœnaof sweets and bitters.
The roar of many waters—the ululatus of many-voiced humanity—marvellously monotonous, considering the infinite variety of its ingredients, booms on through the dark. The story-teller alone can take up the score of the mighty medley, and read at a glance what every fife and fiddle-stick is doing. That pompous thrum-thrum is the talk of the great white Marseilles paunch, pietate gravis; the whine comes from Lazarus, at the area rails; and the bass is old Dives, roaring at his butler; the piccolo is contributed by the studious school-boy, whistling over his Latin Grammar; that wild, long note is poor Mrs. Fondle's farewell of her dead boy; the ugly barytone, rising from the tap-room, is what Wandering Willie calls a sculduddery song—shut your ears, and pass on; and that clear soprano, in nursery, rings out a shower of innocent idiotisms over the half-stripped baby, and suspends the bawl upon its lips.
So, on this night, as usual, there rose up toward the stars a throbbing murmur from our village—a wild chaos of sound, which we must strive to analyse, extracting from the hurly-burly each separate tune it may concern us to hear.
Captain Devereux was in his lodging. He was comparatively tranquil now; but a savage and impious despair possessed him. Serene outwardly—he would not let the vulgar see his scars and sores; and was one of those proud spirits who build to themselves desolate places.
Little Puddock was the man with whom he had least reserve. Puddock was so kindly, and so true and secret, and cherished beside, so great an admiration for him, that he greeted him rather kindly at a moment when another visitor would have fared scurvily enough. Puddock was painfully struck with his pallor, his wild and haggard eye, and something stern and brooding in his handsome face, which was altogether new and shocking to him.
'I've beenthinking, Puddock,' he said; 'and thought with me has grown strangely like despair—and that's all. Why, man,think—what is there for me?—all my best stakes I've lost already; and I'm fast losing myself. How different, Sir, is my fate from others? Worse men than I—every way incomparably worse—and d—— them,theyprosper, while I go down the tide. 'Tisn't just!' And he swore a great oath. ''Tis enough to make a man blaspheme. I've done with life—I hate it. I'll volunteer. 'Tis my first thought in the morning, and my last at night, how well I'd like a bullet through my brain or heart. D—— the world, d—— feeling, d—— memory. I'm not a man that can always be putting prudential restraints upon myself. I've none of those plodding ways. The cursed fools that spoiled me in my childhood, and forsake me now, have all to answer for—I charge them with my ruin.' And he launched a curse at them (meaning his aunt) which startled the plump soul of honest little Puddock.
'You must not talk that way, Devereux,' he said, still a good deal more dismayed by his looks than his words. 'Why are you so troubled with vapours and blue devils?'
'Nowhy!' said Devereux, with a grim smile.
'My dear Devereux, I say, you mustn't talk in that wild way. You—you talk like a ruined man!'
'And I so comfortable!'
'Why, to be sure, Dick, you have had some little rubs, and, maybe, your follies and your vexations; but, hang it, you are young; you can't get experience—at least, so I've found it—without paying for it. You mayn't like it just now; but it's well worth the cost. Your worries and miscarriages, dear Richard, will make you steady.'
'Steady!' echoed Devereux, like a man thinking of something far away.
'Ay, Dick—you've sown your wild oats.'
On a sudden, says the captain, 'My dear little Puddock,' and he took him by the hand, with a sort of sarcastic flicker of a smile, and looked in his face almost contemptuously; but his eyes and his voice softened before the unconscious bonhomie of the true little gentleman. 'Puddock, Puddock, did it never strike you, my boy, that Hamlet never strives to speak a word of comfort to the forlorn old Dane? He felt it would not do. Every man that's worth a button knows his own case best; and I know the secrets of my own prison-house. Sown my wild oats! To be sure I have, Puddock, my boy; and the new leaf I've turned over is just this; I've begun to reap them; and they'll grow, my boy, and grow as long as grass grows; and—Macbeth has his dagger, you know, and I've my sickle—the handle towards my hand, that you can't see; and in the sweat of my brow, I must cut down and garner my sheaves; and as I sowed, so must I reap, and grind, and bake, the black and bitter grist of my curse. Don't talk nonsense, little Puddock. Wasn't it Gay that wrote the "Beggar's Opera?" Ay! Why don't youplay Macheath? Gay!—Ay—a pleasant fellow, and his poems too. He writes—don't you remember—he writes,
'So comes a reckoning when the banquet's o'er—The dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more.'
'Puddock, throw up that window, the room's too hot—or stay never mind; read a book, Puddock, you like it, and I'll stroll a little along the path, and find you when I come back.'
'Why it's dark,' remonstrated his visitor.
'Dark? I dare say—yes, of course—very dark—but cool; the air is cool.'
He talked like a man who was thinking of something else; and Puddock thought how strangely handsome he looked, with that pale dash of horror, like King Saul when the evil spirit was upon him; and there was a terrible misgiving in his mind. The lines of the old ballad that Devereux used to sing with a sort of pathetic comicality were humming in his ear,—
'He walked by the river, the river so clear—The river that runs through Kilkenny;His name was Captain Wade,And he died for that fair maid.'
and so following. What could he mean by walking, at that hour, alone, by the river's brink? Puddock, with a sinking and flutter at his heart, unperceived, followed him down stairs, and was beside him in the street.
'The path by the river?' said Puddock.
'The river—the path? Yes, Sir, the path by the river. I thought I left you up stairs,' said Devereux, with an odd sort of sulky shrinking.
'Why, Devereux, I may as well walk with you, if you don't object,' lisped Puddock.
'But I do object, Sir,' cried Devereux, suddenly, in a fierce high key, turning upon his little comrade. 'What d'ye mean, Sir? You think I mean to—todrownmyself—ha, ha, ha! or what the devil's running in your head? I'm not a madman, Sir, nor you a mad-doctor. Go home, Sir—or go to—to where you will, Sir; only go your own way, and leave me mine.'
'Ah, Devereux, you're very quick with me,' said Puddock, placing his plump little hand on Devereux's arm, and looking very gently and gravely in his face.
Devereux laid his hand upon Puddock's collar with an agitated sort of sneer. But he recollected himself, and that diabolical gloom faded from his face, and he looked more like himself, and slid his cold hand silently into little Puddock's; and so they stood for a while, by the door-step, to the admiration of Mrs. Irons—whom Devereux's high tones had called to her window.
'Puddock, I don't think I'm well, and I don't know quite what I've been saying. I ask your pardon. You've always been very good to me, Puddock. I believe—I believe you're the only friend I have, and—Puddock, you won't leave me.'
So up stairs they went together; and Mrs. Irons, from what she had overheard, considered herself justified in saying, that 'Captain Devereux was for drowning himself in the Liffey, and would have done so only for Lieutenant Puddock.' And so the report was set a-going round the garrulous town of Chapelizod.
As Mr. Dangerfield glided rapidly along the silent road towards the Brass Castle, the little gate of his now leafless flower-garden being already in sight, he saw a dark figure awaiting him under the bushes which overhung it. It was Mr. Irons, who came forward, without speaking, and lifted his hat respectfully, perhaps abjectly, and paused for recognition.
'Hey! Irons?' said Mr. Dangerfield.
'At your service, Sir.'
'Well, and what says his worship?' asked the gentleman, playfully.
'I wanted to tell your honour that it won't make no odds, and I'll do it.'
'Of course. You're right. It does make no odds. He'll hang whatever you do; and I tell you 'tis well he should, and only rightyoushould speak the truth, too—'twill make assurance doubly sure.'
'At eight o'clock in the morning, Sir, I'll attend you,' said Irons, with a sort of shiver.
'Good! and I'll jot down your evidence, and we'll drive over to Mr. Lowe's, to Lucan, and you shall swear before him. And, you understand—I don't forget what I promised—you'll be a happier man every way for having done your duty; and here's half-a-crown to spend in the Salmon House.'
Irons only moaned, and then said—
'That's all, Sir. But I couldn't feel easy till it was off my mind.'
'At eight o'clock I shall expect you. Good-night, Irons.'
And with his hands in his pockets he watched Irons off the ground. His visage darkened as for a while his steady gaze was turned toward Dublin. He was not quite so comfortable as he might have been.
Meanwhile Black Dillon, at Mrs. Sturk's request, had stalked up stairs to the patient's bed-side.
'Had not I best send at once for Mr. Dangerfield?' she enquired.
'No occasion, Ma'am,' replied the eminent but slightly fuddled 'Saw-bones,' spitting beside him on the floor 'until I see whether I'll operate to-night. What's in that jug, Ma'am? Chicken-broth? That'll do. Give him a spoonful. See—heswallows free enough;' and then Black Dillon plucked up his eyelids with a roughness that terrified the reverential and loving Mrs. Sturk, and examined the distorted pupils.
'You see the cast in that eye, Ma'am; there's the pressure on the brain.'
Dillon was lecturing her upon the case as he proceeded, from habit, just as he did the students in the hospital.
'No convulsions, Ma'am?'
'Oh, no, Sir, thank Heaven; nothing in the least—only quiet sleep, Sir; just like that.'
'Sleep, indeed—that's no sleep, Ma'am. Boo-hooh! I couldn't bawl that way in his face, Ma'am, without disturbing him, Ma'am, if it was. Now we'll get him up a bit—there, that's right—aisy. He was lying, Ma'am, I understand, on his back, when they found him in the park, Ma'am—so Mr. Dangerfield says—ay. Well, slip the cap off—backward—backward, you fool; that'll do. Who plastered his head, Ma'am?'
'Doctor Toole, Sir.'
'Toole—Toole—h'm—I see—hey—hi—tut! 'tis the devil's pair of fractures, Ma'am. See—nearer—d'ye see, there's two converging lines—d'ye see, Ma'am?' and he indicated their directions with the silver handle of an instrument he held in his hand, 'and serrated at the edges, I'll be bound.'
And he plucked off two or three strips of plaster with a quick whisk, which made poor little Mrs. Sturk wince and cry, 'Oh, dear, Sir!'
'Threpan, indeed!' murmured Black Dillon, with a coarse sneer, 'did they run the scalpel anywhere over the occiput, Ma'am?'
'I—I—truly, Sir—I'm not sure,' answered Mrs. Sturk, who did not perfectly understand a word he said.
The doctor's hair had not been cut behind. Poor Mrs. Sturk, expecting his recovery every day, would not have permitted the sacrilege, and his dishevelled cue lay upon his shoulders. With his straight surgical scissors Black Dillon snipped off this sacred appendage before the good lady knew what he was about, and cropped the back of his head down to the closest stubble.
'Will you send, if you please, Ma'am, for Doctor—Doctor—Thingumee?'
'Doctor Toole?' enquired Mrs. Sturk.
'Doctor Toole, Ma'am; yes,' answered the surgeon.
He himself went down to the coach at the hall-door, and in a few minutes returned with a case, and something in a cloth. From the cloth he took an apparatus, like the cushioned back of a chair, with straps and buckles attached to it, and a sort of socket, the back of which was open, being intended to receive the head in.
'Now, Ma'am, we'll prop him up comfortable with this, if you please.'
And having got it into place, and lowered by a screw, the cushions intended to receive his head, and got the lethargic trunk and skull of the Artillery doctor well-placed for his purpose, he took out a roll of sticking-plaster and a great piece of lint, and laid them on the table, and unlocked his box, which was a large one, and took out several instruments, silver-mounted, straight and crooked, with awful adaptations to unknown butcheries and tortures, and then out came another—the veritable trepan—resembling the homely bit-and-brace, but slender, sinister, and quaint, with a murderous sort of elegance.
'You may as well order in half-a-dozen clean towels, if you please, Ma'am.'
'Oh! Doctor, you're not going to have an operation to-night, gasped Mrs. Sturk, her face quite white and damp, and her clasped hands trembling.
'Twenty to one, Ma'am,' he replied with a slight hiccup, 'we'll have nothing of the kind; but have them here, Ma'am, and some warm water for fear of accidents—though maybe 'tis only for a dhrop of punch we'll be wanting it,' and his huge, thirsty mouth grinned facetiously; and just then Dr. Toole entered the room. He was confoundedly surprised when he found Black Dillon there. Though bent on meeting him with hauteur and proper reserve, on account of his damnable character, he was yet cowed by his superior knowledge, so that Tom Toole's address was strangely chequered with pomposity and alarm.
Dillon's credentials there was, indeed, no disputing, so they sent for Moore, the barber; and, while he was coming, they put the women out of the room, and sat in consultation.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'T'
he ladies were not much the wiser, though, I confess, they were not far removed from the door. The great men inside talked indistinctly and technically, and once Doctor Dillon was so unfeeling as to crack a joke—they could not distinctly hear what—and hee-haw brutally over it. And poor little Mrs. Sturk was taken with a great palpitation, and looked as white as a ghost, and was, indeed, so obviously at the point of swooning that her women would have removed her to the nursery, and placed her on the bed, but that such a procedure would have obliged them to leave the door of their sick master's room, just then a point of too lively interest to be deserted. So they consoled their mistress, and supported her with such strong moral cordials as compassionate persons in their rank and circumstances are prompt to administer.
'Oh! Ma'am, jewel, don't be takin' it to heart that way—though, dear knows, 'tis no way surprisin' you would; for may I never sin if ever I seen such a murtherin' steel gimblet as the red-faced docthor—I mane the Dublin man—has out on the table beside the poor masther—'tid frighten the hangman to look at it—an' six towels, too! Why, Ma'am dear, if 'twas what they wor goin' to slaughter a bullock they wouldn't ax more nor that.'
'Oh! don't. Oh! Katty, Katty—don't, oh don't'
'An' why wouldn't I, my darlin' misthress, tell you what's doin', the way you would not be dhruv out o' your senses intirely if you had no notion, Ma'am dear, iv what they're goin' to do to him?'
At this moment the door opened, and Doctor Dillon's carbuncled visage and glowing eyes appeared.
'Is there a steady woman there—not a child, you know, Ma'am? A—you'lldo (to Katty). Come in here, if you please, and we'll tell you what you're to do.'
So, being nothing loath, she made her courtesy and glided in.
'Oh! doctor,' gasped poor Mrs. Sturk, holding by the hem of his garment, 'do you think it will kill him?'
'No, Ma'am—not to-night, at any rate,' he answered, drawing back; but still she held him.
'Oh! doctor, you think itwillkill him?'
'No, Ma'am—there's always some danger.'
'Danger of what, Sir?'
'Fungus, Ma'am—if he gets over the chance of inflammation.But, on the other hand, Ma'am, we may do him a power of good; and see, Ma'am, 'twill be best for you to go down or into the nursery, and we'll call you, Ma'am, if need be—that is, if he's better, Ma'am, as we hope.'
'Oh! Mr. Moore, it's you,' sobbed the poor woman, holding fast by the sleeve of the barber, who that moment, with many reverences and 'your servant, Ma'am,' had mounted to the lobby with the look of awestruck curiosity, in his long, honest face, which the solemn circumstance of his visit warranted.
'You're the man we sent for?' demanded Dillon, gruffly.
''Tis good Mr. Moore,' cried trembling little Mrs. Sturk, deprecating and wheedling him instinctively to make him of her side, and lead him to take part with her and resist all violence to her husband—flesh of her flesh, and bone of her bone.
'Why don't you spake, Sor-r-r? Are you the barber we sent for or no? What ails you, man?' demanded the savage Doctor Dillon, in a suppressed roar.
'At your sarvice, Ma'am—Sir,' replied Moore, with submissive alacrity.
'Come in here, then. Come in, will you?' cried the doctor, hauling him in with his great red hand.
'There now—there now—there—there,' he said gruffly, extending his palm to keep off poor Mrs. Sturk.
So he shut the door, and poor Mrs. Sturk heard him draw the bolt, and felt that her Barney had passed out of her hands, and that she could do nothing for him now but clasp her hands and gasp up her prayers for his deliverance; and so great indeed was her anguish and panic, that she had not room for the feminine reflection how great a brute Doctor Dillon was.
So she heard them walking this way and that, but could not distinguish what they said, only she heard them talking; and once or twice a word reached her, but not very intelligible, such as—
''Twas Surgeon Beauchamp's—see that'
'Mighty curious.'
Then a lot of mumbling, and
'Cruciform, of course.'
This was said by Doctor Dillon, near the door, where he had come to take an additional candle from the table that stood there; as he receded it lost itself in mumble again, and then she heard quite plainly—
'Keep your hand there.'
And a few seconds after,
'Hold it there and don't let it drip.'
And then a little more mumbled dialogue, and she thought she heard—
'Begin now.'
And there was a dead silence of many seconds; and Mrs. Sturk felt as if she must scream, and her heart beat at a gallop,and her dry, white lips silently called upon her Maker for help, and she felt quite wild, and very faint; and heard them speak brief, and low together, and then another long silence; and then a loud voice, in a sort of shriek, cry out that name—holy and awful—which we do not mix in tales like this. It was Sturk's voice; and he cried in the same horrid shriek, 'Murder—mercy—Mr. Archer!'
And poor Mrs. Sturk, with a loud hysterical cry, that quivered with her agony, answered from without, and wildly rattled at the door-handle, and pushed with all her feeble force to get in, in a kind of crescendo screaming—'Oh, Barney—Barney—Barney—sweetheart—what are theydoing?'
'Oh! blessed hour!—Ma'am—'tis the master himself that is talking;' and with a very pale face the maid, who stood in the doorway beside her, uttered her amazed thanksgiving.
And the doctors' voices were now heard plainly enough soothing the patient, and he seemed to have grown more collected; and she heard him—she thought—repeat a snatch of a prayer, as a man might just rescued from a shipwreck; and he said in a tone more natural in one so sick and weak, 'I'm a dead man—he's done it—where is he?—he's murdered me.'
'Who?' demanded Toole's well-known voice.
'Archer—the villain—Charles Archer.'
'Give me the cup with the claret and water, and the spoon—there it is,' said Dillon's rough bass tones.
And she heard the maid's step crossing the floor, and then there was a groan from Sturk.
'Here, take another spoonful, and don't mind talking for a while. It's doing mighty well. There, don't let him slip over—that's enough.'
Just then Toole opened the door enough to put his head through, and gently restraining poor Mrs. Sturk with his hand, he said with a vigorous whisper—
''Twill all go well, Ma'am, we hope, if he's not agitated; you must not go in, Ma'am, nor talk to him—by-and-by you may see him, but he must be quiet now; his pulse is very regular at present—but you see, Ma'am, we can't be too cautious.'
While Toole was thus discoursing her at the door, she heard Dr. Dillon washing his hands, and Sturk's familiar voice, sounding so strange after the long silence, say very languidly and slowly—
'Take a pen, Sir—some one—take and write—write down what I say.'
'Now, Ma'am, you see he's bent on talking,' said Toole, whose quick ear caught the promise of a revelation. 'I must be at my post, Ma'am—the bed post—hey! We may joke now, Ma'am, that the patient's recovered his speech; and, you know, you mustn't come in—not till we tell you it's safe—there now—rely on me—I give you my word of honour he's doing as well as we could have hoped for.'
And Toole shook her trembling little hand very cordially, and there was a very good-natured twinkle in his eye.
And Toole closed the door again, and they heard Sturk murmur something more; and then the maid, who was within, was let out by Toole, and the door closed and bolted again, and a sort of cooing and murmuring recommenced.
After a while, Toole, absolutely pale, and looking very stern, opened the door, and, said he, in a quiet way—
'Ma'am, may I send Katty down to the King's House, with a note to Mr.—a note to the King's House, Ma'am—I thank you—and see, Katty, good girl, ask to see the gentleman himself, and take his answer from his own lips.'
And he tore off the back of a letter, and pencilled on it these words—
'My dear Sir,—Dr. Sturk has been successfully operated upon by me and another gentleman; and being restored to speech and recollection, but very weak, desires earnestly to see you, and make an important disclosure to you as a justice of the peace.
'I am, Sir, your very obedient, humble servant,
'Thomas Toole.
Upon this note he clapt a large seal with the Toole arms, and when it was complete, placed it in the hands of Katty, who, with her riding-hood on and her head within it teeming with all sorts of wild conjectures and horrible images, and her whole soul in a whirl of curiosity, hurried along the dark street, now and then glinted on by a gleam through a shutter, or enlivened by the jingle of a harpsichord, or a snatch of talk and laughter heard faintly through the windows, and along the Dublin-road to the gate of the King's House. The hall-door of this hospitable mansion stood open, and a flood of red candle-light fell upon one side of the gray horse, saddle, and holster pipes, which waited the descent of Mr. Lowe, who was shaking hands with the hospitable colonel at the threshold.
Katty was just in time, and the booted gentleman, in his surtout and cape, strode back again into the light of the hall-door, and breaking the seal, there read, with his clear cold eye, the lines which Toole had pencilled, and thrusting it into his coat pocket, and receiving again the fuddled butler's benedictions—he had given him half-a-crown—he mounted his gray steed, and at a brisk trot, followed by his servant, was, in little more than two minutes' time, at Dr. Sturk's door.
Moore, the barber,functus officio, was now sitting in the hall, with his razors in his pocket, expecting his fee, and smelling pleasantly of the glass of whiskey which he had just drunk to the health and long life of the master—God bless him—and all the family.
Doctor Toole met Mr. Lowe on the lobby; he was doing the honours of the ghastly eclaircissement, and bowed him up to the room, with many an intervening whisper, and a sort of apology for Dillon, whom he treated as quite unpresentable, and resolved to keep as much as practicable in the background.
But that gentleman, who exulted in a good stroke of surgery, and had no sort of professional delicacy, calling his absent fathers and brethren of the scalpel and forceps by confounded hard names when he detected a blunder or hit a blot of theirs, met Mr. Lowe on the upper lobby.
'Your servant, Sir,' said he, rubbing his great red hands with a moist grin; 'you see what I've done. Pell's no surgeon, no more than that—(Toole, he was going to say, but modified the comparison in time)—that candlestick! to think of him never looking at the occiput; andhefound lying on his back—'twas well Mr. Dangerfield pitched on me—though I say it—whyshouldn'tI say it—a depression, the size of a shilling in the back of the head—a bit of depressed bone, you see, over the cerebellum—the trepan has relieved him.'
'And was it Mr. Dangerfield?' enquired Lowe, who was growing to admire that prompt, cynical hero more and more every hour.
'By gannies, it just was. He promised me five hundred guineas to make him speak. What all them solemn asses could not compass, that's sweeping in their thousands every quarter, thanks to a discerning public. Baugh! He had heard of a rake-helly dog, with some stuff in his brain-pan, and he came to me—and I done it—Black Dillon done it—ha, ha! that's for the pack of them. Baugh!'
Doctor Dillon knew that the profession slighted him; and every man's hand against him, his was against every man.
Sturk was propped up and knew Lowe, and was, in a ghastly sort of way, glad to see him. He looked strangely pale and haggard, and spoke faintly.
'Take pen and ink,' said he.
There were both and paper ready.
'He would not speak till you came,' whispered Toole, who looked hotter than usual, and felt rather small, and was glad to edge in a word.
'An' don't let him talk too long; five minutes or so, and no more,' said Doctor Dillon; 'and give him another spoonful now—and where's Mr. Dangerfield?'
'And do you really mean to say, Sir, he promised you a fee offive—eh?' said Toole, who could not restrain his somewhat angry curiosity.
'Five hundred guineas—ha, ha, ha! be gannies, Sir, there's a power of divarsion in that.'
''Tis a munificent fee, and prompted by a fine public spirit. We are all his debtors for it! and to you, Sir, too. He's an earlyman, Sir, I'm told. You'll not see him to-night. But, whatever he has promised is already performed; you may rely on his honour.'
'If you come out at nine in the morning, Dr. Dillon, you'll find him over his letters and desk, in his breakfast parlour,' said Toole, who, apprehending that this night's work might possibly prove a hit for the disreputable and savage luminary, was treating him, though a good deal stung and confounded by the prodigious amount of the fee, with more ceremony than he did at first. 'Short accounts, you know,' said Dillon, locking the lid of his case down upon his instruments. 'But maybe, as you say, 'tis best to see him in the morning—them rich fellows is often testy—ha! ha! An' a word with you, Dr. Toole,' and he beckoned his brother aside to the corner near the door—and whispered something in his ear, and laughed a little awkwardly, and Toole, very red and grave, lent him—with many misgivings, two guineas.
'An' see—don't let them give him too much of that—the chicken broth's too sthrong—put some wather to that, Miss, i' you plaze—and give him no more to-night—d'ye mind—than another half a wine-glass full of clar't unless the docthor here tells you.'
So Dr. Dillon took leave, and his fiery steeds, whirling him onward, devoured, with their resounding hoofs, the road to Dublin, where he had mentally devoted Toole's two guineas to the pagan divinities whose worship was nightly celebrated at the old St. Columbkill.
'We had best have it in the shape of a deposition, Sir, at once,' said Lowe, adjusting himself at the writing-table by the bed-side, and taking the pen in his fingers, he looked on the stern and sunken features of the resuscitated doctor, recalled, as it were, from 'the caverns of the dead and the gates of darkness,' to reveal an awful secret, and point his cold finger at the head of the undiscovered murderer.
'Tell it as shortly as you can, Sir, but without haste,' said Toole, with his finger on his pulse. Sturk looked dismal and frightened, like a man with the hangman at his elbow.
'It was that d—d villain—Charles Archer—write that down—'twas a foul blow—Sir, I'm murdered—I suppose.'
And then came a pause.
'Give me a spoonful of wine—I was coming out of town at dusk—this evening—'
'No, Sir; you're here some time, stunned and unconscious.'
'Eh! how long?'
'No matter, Sir, now. Just say the date of the night it happened.'
Sturk uttered a deep groan.
'Am I dying?' said he.
'No, Sir, please goodness—far from it,' said Toole.
'Fracture?' asked Sturk, faintly.
'Why—yes—something of the sort—indeed—altogether a fracture; but going on mighty well, Sir.'
'Stabbed anywhere—or gunshot wound?' demanded Sturk.
'Nothing of the kind, Sir, upon my honour.'
'You think—I have a chance?' and Sturk's cadaverous face was moist with the dews of an awful suspense.
'Chance,' said Toole, in an encouraging tone, 'well, I suppose you have, Sir—ha, ha! But, you know, you must not tire yourself, and we hope to have you on your legs again, Sir, in a reasonable time.'
'I'm very bad—the sight's affected,' groaned Sturk.
'See, Sir, you tire yourself to no purpose. You're in good hands, Sir—and all will go well—as we expect—Pell has been with you twice—'
'H'm! Pell—that's good.'
'And you're going on mighty well, Sir, especially to-night.'
'Doctor, upon your honour, have I a chance?'
'You have, Sir,—certainly—yes—upon my honour.'
'Thank God!' groaned Sturk, turning up the whites of his eyes, and lifting up two very shaky hands.
'But you must not spoil it—and fatigue will do that for you,' remarked Toole.
'But, Sir, Sir—I beg pardon, Doctor Toole—but this case is not quite a common one. What Doctor Sturk is about to say may acquire an additional legal value by his understanding precisely the degree of danger in which he lies. Now, Doctor Sturk, you must not be over much disturbed,' said Lowe.
'No, Sir—don't fear me—I'm not much disturbed,' said Sturk.
'Well, Doctor Toole,' continued Lowe, 'we must depart a little here from regular medical routine—tell Doctor Sturk plainly all you think.'
'Why—a'—and Doctor Toole cleared his voice, and hesitated.
'Tell him what you and Doctor Dillon think, Sir. Why, Doctor Dillon spoke very plainly to me.'
'I don't like his pulse, Sir. I think you had better not have agitated him,' muttered Toole with an impatient oath.
''Tis worse to keep his mind doubtful, and on the stretch,' said Lowe. 'Doctor Toole, Sir, has told you the bright side of the case. It is necessary, making the deposition you propose, that you should know t'other.'
'Yes, of course—quite right—go on,' said Sturk faintly.
'Why, you know,' said Toole, sniffing, and a little sulkily, 'you know, Doctor Sturk, we, doctors, like to put the best foot foremost; but you can't but be aware, that with the fractures—twofractures—along the summit of the skull, and the operation by the trepan, behind your head, just accomplished, there must be, of course, some danger.'
'I see. Sir,' said Sturk, very quietly, but looking awfully cadaverous; 'all I want to know is, how long you think I may live?'
'You may recover altogether, Sir—you may—but, of course—you may—there's a chance; and things might not go right,' said Toole, taking snuff.
'I see—Sir—'tis enough'—and there was a pause. 'I'd like to have the sacrament, and pray with the clergyman a little—Lord help me!—and my will—only a few words—I don't suppose there's much left me; but there's a power of appointment—a reversion of £600, stock—I'm tired.'
'Here, take this,' said Toole, and put half-a-dozen spoonsful of claret and water into his lips, and he seemed to revive a little. 'There's no immediate hurry—upon my honour, Doctor Sturk, there isn't,' said Toole. 'Just rest aisy a bit; you're disturbed a good deal, Sir; your pulse shows it; and you need not, I assure you, upon my conscience and honour—'tis quite on the cards you may recover.'
And as he spoke, Toole was dropping something from a phial into a wine-glass—sal volatile—ether—I can't say; but when Dr. Sturk swallowed it there was a 'potter-carrier's' aroma about the room.
Then there was a pause for a while, and Toole kept his fingers on his pulse; and Sturk looked, for some time, as if he were on the point of fainting, which, in his case, might have proved very like dying.
'Have you the claret bottle in the room?' demanded Toole, a little flurried; for Sturk's pulses were playing odd pranks, and bounding and sinking in a dance of death.
'The what, Sir?' asked the maid.
'Thewine, woman—this instant,' said the doctor, with a little stamp.
So, the moment he had the bottle, he poured out half a large glass, and began spooning it into Sturk's white parted lips.
Lowe looked on very uneasily; for he expected, as Toole did also, prodigious revelations; though each had a suspicion that he divined their nature tolerably clearly.
'Give him some more,' said Toole, with his fingers on the sick man's wrist, and watching his countenance. 'D—— it, don't be afraid—more, some more—more!'
And so the Artillery doctor's spirit revived within him; though with flickerings and tremblings; and he heaved some great sighs, and moved his lips. Then he lay still for a while; and after that he spoke.
'The pen, Sir,—write,' he said. 'He met me in the Butcher's Wood; he said he was going to sleep in town,' and Sturk groaned dismally; 'and he began talking on business—and turned and walked a bit with me. I did not expect to see him there—he was frank—and spoke me fair. We were walking slowly. He looked up in the sky with his hands in his coat pockets and was a step, or so, in advance of me; and he turnedshort—I didn't know—I had no more fear than you—and struck me a blow with something he had in his hand. He rose to the blow on his toes—'twas so swift, I had no time—I could not see what he struck with, 'twas like a short bit of rope.'
'Charles Archer? Do you know him, Dr. Toole?' asked Lowe. Toole shook his head.
'Charles Archer!' he repeated, looking at Sturk; 'where does he live?' and he winked to Toole, who was about speaking, to hold his peace.
'Here—in this town—Chapelizod, up the river, a bit, with—with a—changed name,' answered Sturk. And at the name he mentioned, Lowe and Toole, in silence and steadfastly, exchanged a pale, grim glance that was awful to see.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'I'
t seemed that Mr. Dangerfield had taken Zekiel Irons's measure pretty exactly. The clerk had quite made up his mind to take the bold step urged upon him by that gentleman. He was a slow man. When one idea had fairly got into his head there was no room there for another. Cowardly and plotting; but when his cowardice was wrought upon to a certain pitch, he would wax daring and fierce from desperation.
He walked down to the village from the little gate of the Brass Castle, where he had talked with Mr. Dangerfield, appointing eight o'clock next morning for making the deposition; late now for all purposes; but to nail him to a line ofvivá voceevidence when he should come to be examined on Charles Nutter's approaching trial. The whole way along he walked with the piece of silver, which Mr. Paul Dangerfield had given him, griped tight in his crooked fingers, in his breeches' pocket—no change in his grim and sinister face—no turn of the head—no side glance of the eye—all dark, rigid, and tense.
The mechanism of long habit brought him round the corner to the door of the Salmon House, the 'public' facing, but with the length of the street interposing, the Phœnix, whose lights were visible through and under the branches of the village tree. His mind wandered back to the Mills with a shock, and glided stealthily past the Brass Castle without dwelling there, and he looked down the street. Over the bridge at the Elms, lay death in its awful purity. At his left, in the Gray Stone House, was Doctor Sturk—the witness with sealed lips—the victim of Charles Archer's mysterious prowess; and behind lay the church-yard,and the quiet little church with that vault and nameless coffin. Altogether, the suggestions and associations about him were not cheerful or comfortable. He squeezed the silver—Dangerfield's little remembrance—with a furious strain, and ground his teeth.
'I'm like a man surrounded. I wish I was out of it all!' he muttered, with a care-worn glance.
So he entered the public-house.
There was not much business doing. Three friends, Smithfield dealers, or some such folk, talking loudly over their liquor of prices and prospects; and one fat fellow, by the fire, smoking a pipe, with a large glass of punch at his elbow.
'Ah, then, Mr. Irons, an' is it yourself that's in it? and where in the world wor ye all this time?' said the landlady.
'Business, Ma'am, business, Mrs. Molloy.'
'An' there's your chair waitin' for you beside the fire, Mr. Irons, this month an' more—a cowld evening—and we all wondherin' what in the wide world was gone widg ye—this I do'no how long.'
'Thank ye, Ma'am—a pipe and a glass o' punch.'
Irons was always a man of few words, and his laconics did not strike Mistress Molloy as anything very strange. So she wiped the little table at his side, and with one foot on the fender, and his elbow on his knee, he smoked leisurely into the fire-place.
To look at his face you would have supposed he was thinking; but it was only that sort of foggy vacuity which goes by the name of 'a brown study.' He never thought very clearly or connectedly; and his apathetic reveries, when his mood was gloomy, were furnished forth in a barren and monotonous way, with only two or three frightful figures, and a dismal scenery that seldom shifted.
The three gentlemen at the table called for more liquor, and the stout personage, sitting opposite to Irons, dropped into their talk, having smoked out his pipe, and their conversation became more general and hilarious; but Irons scarce heard it. Curiosity is an idle minx, and a soul laden like the clerk's has no entertainment for her. But when one of the three gentlemen who sat together—an honest but sad-looking person with a flaxen wig, and a fat, florid face—placing his hand in the breast of his red plush waistcoat, and throwing himself back in his chair, struck up a dismal tune, with a certain character of psalmody in it, the clerk's ear was charmed for a moment, and he glanced on the singer and sipped some punch; and the ballad, rude and almost rhymeless, which he chanted had an undefined and unpleasant fascination for Irons. It was thus:—
'A man there was near Ballymooney,Was guilty of a deed o' blood,For thravellin' alongside iv ould Tim Rooney.He kilt him in a lonesome wood.'He took his purse, and his hat and cravat.And stole his buckles and his prayer-book, too;And neck-and-heels, like a cruel savage,His corpus through the wood he drew.'He pult him over to a big bog-hole,And sunk him undher four-foot o' wather,And built him down wid many a thumpin' stone.And slipt the bank out on the corpus afther.'
Here the singer made a little pause, and took a great pull at the beer-can, and Irons looked over his shoulder at the minstrel; but his uneasy and malignant glance encountered only the bottom of the vessel; and so he listened for more, which soon came thus:—
'An' says he, "Tim Rooney, you're there, my boy,Kep' down in the bog-hole wid the force iv suction,An' tisn't myself you'll throuble or annoy,To the best o' my opinion, to the resurrection."'With that, on he walks to the town o' Drumgoole,And sot by the fire in an inn was there;And sittin' beside him, says the ghost—"You fool!'Tis myself's beside ye, Shamus, everywhere."'
At this point the clerk stood up, and looked once more at the songster, who was taking a short pull again, with a suspicious, and somewhat angry glance. But the unconscious musician resumed—
'"Up through the wather your secret rises;The stones won't keep it, and it lifts the mould,An' it tracks your footsteps, and yoar fun surprisesAn' it sits at the fire beside you black and cowld.'"At prayers, at dances, or at wake or hurling;At fair, or funeral, or where you may;At your going out, and at your returning,'Tis I'll be with you to your dying day."'
'Is there much more o' that?' demanded Irons, rather savagely.
The thirsty gentleman in the red plush waistcoat was once more, as he termed it, 'wetting his whistle;' but one of his comrades responded tartly enough—
'I'd like there was—an' if you mislike it, neighbour, there's the door.'
If he expected a quarrel, however, it did not come; and he saw by Irons's wandering eye, fierce as it looked, that his thoughts for the moment were elsewhere. And just then the songster,having wiped his mouth in his coat-sleeve, started afresh in these terms—
'"You'll walk the world with a dreadful knowledge,And a heavy heart and a frowning brow;And thinking deeper than a man in college,Your eye will deaden, and your back will bow.'"And when the pariod iv your life is over,The frightful hour of judgment then will be;And, Shamus Hanlon, heavy on your shoulder,I'll lay my cowld hand, and you'll go wid me."'
This awful ditty died away in the prolonged drone which still finds favour in the ears of our Irish rustic musicians, and the company now began to talk of congenial themes, murders, ghosts, and retributions, and the horrid tune went dismally booming on in Mr. Irons's ear.
Trifling, and apparently wholly accidental, as was this occurrence, the musical and moral treat had a very permanent effect upon the fortunes of Irons, and those of other persons who figure in our story. Mr. Irons had another and another glass of punch. They made him only more malign and saturnine. He sat in his corner by the fire, silent and dismal; and no one cared what was passing in the brain behind that black and scowling mask. He paid sternly and furiously, like a villain who has lost at play; and without a 'good-night,' or any other leave taking, glided ominously from the room; and the gentlemen who carried on the discourse and convivialities of the Salmon House, followed him with a gibe or two, and felt the pleasanter for the removal of that ungracious presence.
A few minutes later, Mr. Lowe stood on the hall-door step, and calling to his man, gave him a little note and some silver, and a message—very impressively repeated—and the groom touched his hat, and buttoned up his coat about his neck, the wind being from the east, and he started, at something very near a gallop, for Dublin.
There was a man at the door of the Salmon House, who, with a taciturn and saturnine excitement, watched the unusual bustle going on at the door-steps of Doctor Sturk's dwelling. This individual had been drinking there for a while; and having paid his shot, stood with his back to the wall, and his hands in his pockets, profoundly agitated, and with a chaos of violent and unshaped thoughts rising and rolling in his darkened brain.
After Lowe went into the house again, seeing the maid still upon the steps, talking with Mr. Moore, the barber, who was making his lingering adieux there, this person drew near, and just as the tonsor made his final farewell, and strode down the street towards his own dwelling, he presented himself in time to arrest the retreat of the damsel.
'By your leave, Mistress Katty,' said he, laying his hand on the iron rail of the door-steps.
'Oh, good jewel! an' is that yourself, Mr. Irons? And where in the world wor you this month an' more?'
'Business—nothin'—in Mullingar—an' how's the docthor to-night?'
The clerk spoke a little thickly, as he commonly did on leaving the Salmon House.
'He's elegant, my dear—beyant the beyants—why, he's sittin' up, dhrinking chicken-broth, and talking law-business with Mr. Lowe.'
'He's talkin'!'
'Ay is he, and Mr. Lowe just this minute writ down all about the way he come by the breakin' of his skull in the park, and we'll have great doings on the head of it; for the master swore to it, and Doctor Toole——'
'An'who done it?' demanded Irons, ascending a step, and grasping the iron rail.
'I couldn't hear—nor no one, only themselves.'
'An' who's that rode down the Dublin road this minute?'
'That's Mr. Lowe's man; 'tis what he's sent him to Dublin wid a note.'
'I see,' said Irons, with a great oath, which seemed to the maid wholly uncalled for; and he came up another step, and held the iron rail and shook it, like a man grasping a battle-axe, and stared straight at her, with a look so strange, and a visage so black, that she was half-frightened.
'A what's the matther wid you, Misther Irons?' she demanded.
But he stared on in silence, scowling through her face at vacancy, and swaying slightly as he griped the metal banister.
'Iwill,' he muttered, with another most unclerklike oath, and he took Katty by the hand, and shook it slowly in his own cold, damp grasp as he asked, with the same intense and forbidding look,
'Is Mr. Lowe in the house still?'
'He is, himself and Doctor Toole, in the back parlour.'
'Whisper him, Katty, this minute, there's a man has a thing to tell him.'
'What about?' enquired Katty.
'About a great malefactor.'
Katty paused, with her mouth open, expecting more.
'Tell him now; at once, woman; you don't know what delay may cost.'
He spoke impetuously, and with a bitter sort of emphasis, like a man in a hurry to commit himself to a course, distrusting his own resolution.
She was frightened at his sudden fierceness, and drew back into the hall and he with her, and he shut the door with a clangbehind him, and then looked before him, stunned and wild, like a man called up from his bed into danger.
'Thank God. I'm in for it,' muttered he, with a shudder and a sardonic grin, and he looked for a moment something like that fine image of the Wandering Jew, given us by Gustave Doreé, the talisman of his curse dissolved, and he smiling cynically in the terrible light of the judgment day.
The woman knocked at the parlour door, and Lowe opened it.
'Who's here?' he asked, looking at Irons, whose face he remembered, though he forgot to whom it belonged.
'I'm Zekiel Irons, the parish-clerk, please your worship, and all I want is ten minutes alone with your honour.'
'For what purpose?' demanded the magistrate, eyeing him sharply.
'To tell you all about a damned murder.'
'Hey—why—who did it?'
'Charles Archer,' he answered; and screwed up his mouth with a convulsive grimace, glaring bloodlessly at the justice.
'Ha! Charles Archer! I think we know something already about that.'
'I don't think you do, though; and by your leave, you'll promise, if I bring it home to him, you'll see me safe through it. 'Tis what I'm the only witness living that knows all about it.'
'Well, what is it about?'
'The murder of Mr. Beauclerc, that my Lord Dunoran was tried and found guilty for.'
'Why, all very good; but that did not happen in Ireland.'
'No. At Newmarket, the "Pied Horse."'
'Ay, in England. I know, and that's out of our jurisdiction.'
'I don't care. I'll go to London if you like—to Bow-street—anywhere—so as I make sure to hang him; for my life is worse than death while he's at this side of the grave—and I'd rather be in my coffin—I would—than live within five miles of him. Anyway, you'll hear what I have to say, and toswear, and send me safe across the water to Bow-street, or wherever else you think best; for, if he has his liberty, and gets sight o' me again, I'm a dead man.'
'Come in here, Mr. Irons, and take a chair,' said the justice.
Doctor Toole was in the room, in a balloon-backed chair, regaling himself with a long pipe, and Mr. Lowe shut the door.
'We have another deposition, doctor, to take; Mr. Irons, here, is prepared to swear informations of very singular importance.'
'Irons, hollo! from what planet did you drop to-night?'
'Mullingar, Sir.'
'Nothing about the burning of the old woman at Tyrrell's Pass, eh?'
'No—'tis an old story. I don't care what comes of it, I'm innocent, only you'll say I kept it too long to myself. But youcan't touch my life. I'm more afeard of him than you, and with good cause; but I think he's in a corner now, and I'll speak out and take my chance, and you mustn't allow me to be murdered.'
By this time Lowe had procured writing materials, and all being ready, he and the curious and astonished doctor heard a story very like what we have already heard from the same lips.