Sir Jasper Carew: His Life and Experience

“And is this the common belief? Do you tell me that such is the impression abroad in society?”

“Consult Matt Fosbroke. Ask Harvey Hempton what his wife says. Go to George Tisdall and get his account of their departure from Castle Carew, and the answer they sent when invited there a second time.”

“Why, all this is new to me!” cried MacNaghten, in amazement.

“To be sure, it’s only circumstantial evidence,” broke in Curtis, with a bitter laugh; “but that is precisely what the courts of law tell you is the most unimpeachable of all testimony. It may fail to convince you, but it would be quite sufficient to hang me!”

The bare recurrence, for a second, to this theme at once brought back the old man to his own case, into which he launched with all the fervor of a full mind; now sneering at the capacity of those before whom he was arraigned, now detailing with delight the insolent remarks he had taken occasion to make on the administration of justice generally. It was in vain that MacNaghten tried to lead him away from the subject. It constituted his world to him, and he would not quit it. A chance mention of Fagan’s name in the proceedings of the trial gave occasion at last for interruption, and MacNaghten said, —

“By the way, Fagan is a difficult fellow to deal with. You know him well, I believe?”

“Know him. Ay, that I do, sir. I have known that den of his since it was an apple-stall. My first post-obit was cashed by his worthy father. My last bill” – here he laughed heartily – “my last bill was protested by the son! And yet the fellow is afraid of me. Ay, there is no man that walks this city he dreads so much as me!”

Curtis was so much in the habit of exaggerating his own importance, and particularly as it affected others, that MacNaghten paid but little attention to this remark, when the other quickly rejoined, —

“If you want to manage Fagan, take me with you. He ‘ll not give you money on my bond, nor will he discount a bill for my name’s sake; but he ‘ll do what costs him to the full as much, – he ‘ll tell you the truth, sir. Mark that, – he ‘ll tell you the truth.”

“Will you accompany me to his house to-morrow?” asked Dan, eagerly.

“Ay, whenever you will.”

“I ‘ll call upon you at ten o’clock, then, if not too early, and talk over the business for which I want your assistance. Where are you stopping?”

“My town residence is let to Lord Belview, and to avoid the noise and turmoil of a hotel, I live in lodgings,” said Curtis, slowly, and with a certain pomposity of air and manner; suddenly changing which to his ordinary jocular tone, he said: “You have, maybe, heard of a place called Fum’s Alley. It lies in the Liberty, and opens upon that classic precinct called ‘The Poddle.’ There, sir, at a door over which a straw chair is suspended, – it’s the manufacture of the house, – there, sir, lives Joe Curtis.”

“I ‘ll be with you at ten,” said Dan; and, with some pass-ing allusion to the lateness of the hour, he led the way back into the town, where they parted.

CHAPTER XIX. “FUM’S ALLEY, NEAR THE PODDLE”

MacNaghten’s object in seeking an interview with Fagan was to ascertain, in the first place, who that claimant to the estate was whose views he advocated; and, secondly, what prospect there might be of effecting some species of compromise which should secure to my mother a reasonable competence. Although, in his isolation, he had grasped eagerly even at such co-operation as that of Curtis, the more he thought over the matter, the less reason did he see to rejoice in the alliance. Even before misfortune had affected his intellect, his temper was violent, and his nature impracticable. Always yielding to impulse far more than to mature judgment, he rushed madly on, scrambling from difficulty to difficulty, and barely extricated from one mishap till involved in another.

Such aid as he could proffer, therefore, promised little, and Dan felt more than half disposed to relinquish it. This, however, should be done with all respect to the feelings of Curtis, and, reflecting in what way the object could best be compassed, MacNaghten slowly sauntered onwards to the appointed place. It was not without some difficulty that he at last discovered the miserable lane, at the entrance to which a jaunting-car was now waiting, – a mark of aristocratic intercourse which seemed, by the degree of notice it attracted, to show that such equipages rarely visited this secluded region. MacNaghten’s appearance, however, soon divided public curiosity with the vehicle, and he was followed by a ragged gathering of every age and sex, who very unceremoniously canvassed the object of his coming, and with a most laudable candor criticised his look and appearance. Although poor and wretched in the extreme, none of them asked alms, nor seemed in the slightest degree desirous of attracting attention to their own destitution.

“Is it a lodgin’ yer honer wants?” whispered an old fellow on crutches, sidling close up to MacNaghten, and speaking in a confidential tone. “I ‘ve a back room looks out on the Poddle, for two shillings a week, furnished.”

“I’ve the elegant place Mary Murdoch lived in for ten months, yer honer, in spite of all the polis’, and might be livin’ there yet, if she did n’t take into her head to go to Fishamble Street playhouse one night and get arrested,” cried a one-eyed old hag, with a drummer’s coat on.

“He does n’t want a room, – the gentleman is n’t the likes of them that comes here,” growled out a cripple, who, with the sagacity that often belongs to the maimed, seemed better to divine Dan’s motives.

“You ‘re right, my lad; I was trying to find out where a friend of mine lived, – Mr. Curtis.”

“Faix, ould Joe has company this mornin’,” said the first speaker. “It was to see him that the fat man came on the jaunting-car.”

“Are yiz goin’ to try him agen?” said a red-eyed, fierce-looking woman, whose face was a mass of bruises.

“Sure the gentleman isn’t a bailiff nor a polisman,” broke in the cripple, rebukingly.

“There’s not a man in the Poddle won’t stand up for Joe Curtis, if he needs it,” cried a powerfully built man, whose energy of manner showed that he was the leader of a party.

“Yer honer’s looking for Kitty Nelligan; but she’s gone,” whispered a young creature, with a baby at her breast; and her eyes overran with tears as she spoke. “She died o’ Friday last,” added she, in a still fainter voice.

“Did n’t ye hear him say it was Mister Joe he wanted? and there’s the house he lives in,” said another.

“Yis, but he can’t go up to him now,” said the man who affected to assume rule amongst them; “the one that came on the car said he was n’t to be disturbed on any account.”

“Begorra,” chimed in the cripple, “if it’s a levee, yer honer must wait yer turn!”

“I ‘m quite willing,” said Dan, good-humoredly; “a man has no right to be impatient in the midst of such pleasant company;” and as he spoke, he seated himself on a low stone bench beside the house door, with, all the ease of one bent on being companionable.

Had MacNaghten assumed airs of haughty superiority or insolent contempt for that motley assembly, he never could have attained to the position to which the last words, carelessly uttered as they were, at once raised him. They not only pronounced him a gentleman, but a man of the world besides, – the two qualities in the very highest repute in that class by which he was surrounded. Instead, therefore, of the familiar tone they had previously used towards him, they now stood silently awaiting him to speak.

“Do the people hereabouts follow any particular trade?” asked Dan.

“‘T is straw chairs principally, your honer,” replied the cripple, “is the manufacture of the place; but most of us are on the streets.”

“On the streets, – how do you mean?”

“There’s Billy Glory, there yonder, he sings ballads; that man with the bit of crape round his hat hawks the papers; more of us cry things lost or stolen; and a few more lives by rows and rucktions at elections, and the like.”

“Faix! and,” sighed the strong man, “the trade isn’t worth the following now. I remember when Barry O’Hara would n’t walk the streets without a body-guard, – five in front, and five behind him, – and well paid they were; and I remember Hamilton Brown payin’ fifty of us to keep College Green against the Government, on a great Parliament night. Ay, and we did it too!”

“They wor good times for more than you,” broke in the woman in the uniform coat; “I made seven-and-sixpence on Essex Bridge in one night by the ‘Shan van voght.’”

“The grandest ballad that ever was written,” chimed in an old man with one eye; “does yer honer know it?”

“I’m ashamed to say not perfectly,” said Dan, with an air of humility.

“Molly Daly’s the one can sing it well, then,” cried he; a sentiment re-echoed with enthusiasm by all.

“I’m low and down-hearted of a mornin’,” said Molly, bashfully; “but maybe after a naggin and a pint I’ll be better.”

“Let me have the honor to treat the company,” said Dan, handing a crown-piece to one near him.

“If your honor wants to hear Molly right, make her sing Tom Molloy’s ballad for the Volunteers,” whispered the cripple; and he struck up in a hoarse voice, —

“‘Was she not a fool,When she took off our wool,To leave us so much of theLeather – the leather!“‘It ne’er entered her pateThat a sheepskin will ‘bate,’Will drive a whole nationTogether – together.’”

“I’d rather she ‘d sing Mosy Cassan’s new song on Barry Rutledge,” growled out a bystander.

“A song on Rutledge?” cried Dan.

“Yes, sir. It was describin’ how Watty Carew enticed him downstairs, to kill him. Faix, but there’s murder now goin’ on upstairs; do ye hear ould Joe, how he’s cursin’ and swearin’?”

The uproar was assuredly enough to attract attention; for Curtis was heard screaming something at the top of his voice, and as if in high altercation with his visitor. Mac-Naghten accordingly sprang from his seat, and hurried up the stairs at once, followed by the powerful-looking fellow I have already mentioned. As he came near Curtis’s chamber, however, the sounds died away and nothing could be heard but the low voices of persons conversing in ordinary tones together.

“Step in here, sir,” said the fellow to Dan, unlocking a door at the back of the house; “step in here, and I’ll tell you when Mister Joe is ready to see you.”

MacNaghten accepted the offer, and now found himself in a mean-looking chamber, scantily furnished, and looking out upon some of those miserable lanes and alleys with which the place abounded. The man retired, locking the door after him, and leaving Dan to his own meditations in solitude.

He was not destined to follow these thoughts long undisturbed, for again he could hear Curtis’s voice, which, at first from a distant room, was now to be heard quite close, as he came into the very chamber adjoining that where Dan was.

“Come this way, come this way, I say,” cried the old man, in a voice tremulous with passion. “If you want to seize, you shall see the chattels at once, – no need to trouble yourself about an inventory! There is my bed; I got fresh straw into the sacking on Saturday. The blanket is a borrowed one; that horseman’s cloak is my own. There ‘s not much in that portmanteau,” cried he, kicking it with his foot against the wall. “Two ragged shirts and a lambskin waistcoat, and the title-deeds of estates that not even your chicanery could get back for me. Take them all, take that old blunderbuss, and tell the Grinder that if I ‘d have put it to my head twenty years ago, it would have been mercy, compared to the slow torture of his persecution!”

“My dear Mr. Curtis, my dear sir,” interposed a bland, soft voice that Dan at once recognized as belonging to Mr. Crowther, the attorney, “you must allow me once more to protest against this misunderstanding. There is nothing farther from my thoughts at this moment than any measure of rigor or severity towards you.”

“What do you mean, then, by that long catalogue of my debts? Why have you hunted me out to show me bills I can never pay, and bonds I can never release?”

“Pray be calm, sir; bear with me patiently, and you will see that my business here this morning is the very reverse of what you suspect it to be. It is perfectly true that Mr. Fagan possesses large, very large, claims upon you.”

“How incurred, sir? – answer me that. Who can stand forty, fifty, ay, sixty per cent? Has he not succeeded to every acre of my estate? Have I anything, except that settle-bed, that is n’t his?”

“You cannot expect me to go at length into these matters, sir,” said Crowther, mildly; “they are now bygones, and it is of the future I wish to speak.”

“If the past be bad, the future promises to be worse,” cried Curtis, bitterly. “It is but sorry mercy to ask me to look forward!”

“I think I can convince you to the contrary, sir, if you vouchsafe me a hearing. I hope to show you that there are in all probability many happy years before you, – years of ease and affluence. Yes, sir, in spite of that gesture of incredulity, I repeat it, – of ease and affluence.”

“So, then, they think to buy me at last,” broke in the old man. “The scoundrels must have met with few honest men, or they had never dared to make such a proposal. What do the rascals think to bribe me with, eh? Tell me that.”

“You persist in misunderstanding me, sir. I do not come from the Government; I would not presume to wait on you in such a cause!”

“What’s the peerage to me? I have no descendants to profit by my infamy. I cannot barter my honor for my children’s greatness! I ‘m prouder with that old hat on my head than with the coronet; tell them that. Tell them that Joe Curtis was the only man in all Ireland they never could purchase; tell them that when I had an estate I swore to prosecute for a poacher their ducal Viceroy if he shot a snipe over my lands; and that I ‘m the same man now I was then!”

Crowther sighed heavily, like one who has a wearisome task before him, but must go through with it.

“If I could but persuade you, sir, to believe that my business here has no connection with politics whatever; that the Castle has nothing to do with it – ”

“Ay, I see,” cried Curtis, “it’s Lord Charlemont sent you. It ‘s no use; I ‘ll have nothing to say to any of them. He’s too fond of Castle dinners and Castle company for me! I never knew any good come of the patriotism that found its way up Corkhill at six o’clock of an evening!”

“Once for all, Mr. Curtis, I say that what brought me here this morning was to show you that Mr. Fagan would be willing to surrender all claim against you for outstanding liabilities, and besides to settle on you a very handsome annuity, in consideration of some concessions on your part with respect to a property against which he has very large claims.”

“What’s the annuity, – how much?” cried Curtis, hastily.

“What sum would you yourself feel sufficient, sir? He empowered me to consult your own wishes and expectations on the subject.”

“If I was to say a thousand a-year, for instance?” said Curtis, slowly.

“I’m certain he would not object, sir.”

“Perhaps if I said two, he ‘d comply?”

“Two thousand pounds a-year is a large income for a single man,” replied Crowther, sententiously.

“So it is; but I could spend it. I spent eight thousand a-year once in my life, and when my estate was short of three! and that ‘s what comes of it;” and he gave the settle-bed a rude kick as he spoke. “Would he give two? That’s the question, Crowther: would he give two?”

“I do not feel myself competent to close with that offer, Mr. Curtis; but if you really think that such a sum is necessary – ”

“I do, – I know it; I could n’t do with a shilling less; in fact, I’d find myself restricted enough with that. Whenever I had to think about money, it was hateful to me. Tell him two is the lowest, the very lowest, I ‘d accept of; and if he wishes to treat me handsomely, he may exceed it. You ‘re not to judge of my habits, sir, from what you see here,” added he, fiercely; “this is not what I have been accustomed to. You don’t know the number of people who look up to me for bread. My father’s table was laid for thirty every day, and it had been well for us if as many more were not fed at our cost elsewhere.”

“I have often heard tell of Meagh-valley House and its hospitalities,” said Crowther, blandly.

“‘Come over and drink a pipe of port’ was the invitation when I was a boy. A servant was sent round to the neighborhood to say that a hogshead of claret was to be broached on such a day, and to beg that the gentlemen around would come over and help to drink it, – ay, to drink it out! Your piperly hounds, with their two-bottle magnum, think themselves magnificent nowadays; why, in my time they ‘d have been laughed to scorn!”

“They were glorious times indeed,” cried Crowther, with mad enthusiasm.

“Glorious times to beggar a nation, to prostitute public honor and private virtue,” broke in Curtis, passionately; “to make men heartless debauchees first, that they might become shameless scoundrels after; to teach them a youth of excess and an old age of venality. These were your Glorious Times! But you, sir, may be forgiven for praising them; to you, and others like you, they have been indeed ‘Glorious Times’! Out of them grew those lawsuits and litigations that have enriched you, while they ruined us. Out of that blessed era of orgie and debauch came beggared families and houseless gentry; men whose fathers lay upon down couches, and whose selves sleep upon the like of that;” and the rude settle rocked as his hand shook it. “Out upon your Glorious Times, say I; you might as well call the drunken scene of a dinner-party a picture of domestic comfort and happiness! It was a long night of debauchery, and this that we now see is the sad morning afterwards! Do you know besides, sir,” continued he, in a still fiercer tone, “that in those same ‘Glorious Times,’ you, and others of your stamp, would have been baited like badgers if found within the precincts of a gentleman’s house? Ay, faith, and if my memory does not betray me, I can call to mind one or two such instances.”

The violence of the old man’s passion seemed to have exhausted him, and he sat down on the bed, breathing heavily and panting.

“Where were we?” cried he at last. “What was it that we were arguing? Yes – ay – to be sure – these bills – these confounded bills. I can’t pay them. I would n’t if I could. That scoundrel Fagan has made enough of me without that. What was it you said of an annuity? There was some talk of an annuity, eh?”

Crowther bent down, and spoke some words in a low, murmuring voice.

“Well, and for that what am I to do?” cried Curtis, suddenly. “My share of the compact is heavy enough, I’ll be sworn. What is it?”

“I think I can show you that it is not much of a sacrifice, sir. I know you hate long explanations, and I ‘ll make mine very brief. Mr. Fagan has very heavy charges against an estate which is not unlikely to be the subject of a disputed ownership. It may be a long suit, with all the delays and difficulties of Chancery; and in looking over the various persons who may prefer claims here and there, we find your name amongst the rest, for it is a long list, sir. There may be forty or forty-five in all! The principal one, however, is a wealthy baronet who has ample means to prosecute his claim, and with fair hopes of succeeding. My notion, however, was that if Mr. Fagan could arrange with the several persons in the cause to waive their demands for a certain consideration, that it would not be difficult then to arrange some compromise with the baronet himself, – he surrendering the property to Fagan for a certain amount, on taking with it all its liabilities. You understand?”

“And who’s the owner?” asked Curtis, shortly.

“He is dead, sir.”

“Who was he when alive?”

“An old friend, or rather the son of an old friend of yours, Mr. Curtis!”

“Ah, Brinsley Morgan! I guess him at once; but you are wrong, quite wrong there, my good fellow. I have n’t the shadow of a lien on his estate. We talked it over together one day, and Hackett, the Attorney-General, who was in the house, said that my claim was n’t worth five shillings. But I ‘ll tell you where I have a claim, – at least Hackett said so, I have a very strong claim – No, no; I was forgetting again, – my memory is quite gone. It is so hard when one grows old to bear the last ten or fifteen years in mind. I can remember my boyhood and my school-days like yesterday. It is late events that confuse me! You ‘ll scarce believe me when I tell you I often find myself going to dine with some old friend, and only discover when I reach his door that he is dead and gone this many a day! There was something in my mind to tell you, and it has escaped me already. Oh! I have it. There are some curious old family papers in that musty-looking portmanteau. I should like to find out some clever fellow that would look them over without rushing me into a lawsuit, mind ye, for I have no heart for that now! My brother Harry’s boy is dead. India finished him, poor fellow! That’s the key of it, – see if it will open the lock.”

“If you like I ‘ll take them back with me, sir, and examine them myself at home.”

“Do so, Crowther. Only understand me well, no bills of costs, my worthy friend; no searches after this, or true copies of that; I ‘ll have none of them. As Dick Parsons said, I ‘d rather spend my estate at the ‘Fives’ than the ‘Four’ Courts.”

Crowther gave one of his complacent laughs; and having induced Curtis to accept an invitation for the following day at dinner, he took the portmanteau under his arm and withdrew.

He had scarcely descended the stairs when Dan found the door unlocked, and proceeded to pay his visit to Curtis, his mind full of all that he had just overheard, and wondering at the many strange things he had been a listener to.

When MacNaghten entered, he found Curtis sitting at a table, with his head resting on his hand, and looking like one deeply engaged in thought. Dan saluted him twice, without obtaining a reply, and at last said, —

“They said that you had a visitor this morning, and so I have been waiting for some time to see you.”

The other nodded assentingly, but did not speak.

“You are, perhaps, too much tired now,” said Dan, in a kind voice, “for much talking. Come and have a turn in the open air; it will refresh you.”

Curtis arose and took his hat, without uttering a word.

“You are a good walker, Curtis,” said MacNaghten, as they reached the street. “What say you if we stroll down to Harold’s Cross, and eat our breakfast at the little inn they call ‘The Friar’?”

“Agreed,” muttered the other, and walked along at his side, without another word; while Dan, to amuse his companion, and arouse him from the dreary stupor that oppressed him, exerted himself in various ways, recounting the popular anecdotes of the day, and endeavoring, so far as might be, to entertain him.

It was soon, however, evident that Curtis neither heard nor heeded the efforts the other was making, for he continued to move along with his head down, mumbling at intervals to himself certain broken and incoherent words. At first, MacNaghten hoped that this moody dejection would pass away, and his mind recover its wonted sharpness; but now he saw that the impression under which he labored was no passing or momentary burden, but a heavy load that weighed wearily on his spirits.

“I am afraid you are scarcely so well as usual to-day?” asked Dan, after a long interval of silence between them.

“I have a pain hereabouts, – it is not a pain either, but I feel uneasy,” said Curtis, pushing his hat back from his forehead, and touching his temple with his finger.

“It will pass away with the fresh air and a hearty breakfast, I hope. If not, I will see some one on our return. Who is your doctor?”

“My doctor! You ask a man who has lived eighty-four years who is his doctor! That nature that gave him a good stout frame; the spirit that told him what it could, and what it could not, bear, – these, and a hearty contempt for physic and all that live by it, have guided me so far, and you may call them my doctors if you wish.”

Rather pleased to have recalled the old man to his habitual energy, Dan affected to contest his opinions, by way of inducing him to support them; but he quickly saw his error, for Curtis, as though wearied by even this momentary effort, seemed more downcast and depressed than before.