Tom Burke Of "Ours", Volume II

CHAPTER XXXIV. A CHARACTER OF OLD DUBLIN

It was about nine o’clock of a calm summer evening as I entered Dublin, – nearly the same hour at which, some ten years before, I had approached that city, poor, houseless, friendless; and still was I the same. In that great capital of my country I had not one to welcome me; not one who would rejoice at my coming, or feel any interest in my fortunes. This indeed was loneliness, – utter solitude. Still, if there be something which weighs heavily on the heart in the isolation of one like me, there is a proportionate sense of independence of his fellow-man that sustains the courage and gives energy to the will. I felt this as I mixed with the crowds that thronged the streets, and shrank not from the inquisitive glances which my questionable appearance excited as I passed.

Though considerable changes had taken place in the outskirts of the capital since I had seen it last, the leading thoroughfares were just as I remembered them; and as I walked along Dame Street, and one by one each familiar object caught my eye, I could almost have fancied the long interval since I had been there before like a mere dream. National physiognomy, too, has a strange effect on him who has been long absent from his country. Each face you meet seems well known. The traits of features, to which the eye was once so well accustomed, awake a memory of individuals, and it is sometimes a moat difficult task to distinguish between the acquaintance and the passing stranger.

This I experienced at every moment; and at length, as I stood gazing on the space before the Bank, and calling to mind the last scene I witnessed there, a tall, strongly-built man brushed close past me, and then turning round, fixed a steady and searching look on me. As I returned his stare, a sudden thought flashed upon me that I had seen the face before; but where, how, and when, I could not call to mind. And thus we stood silently confronting each other for some minutes.

“I see you are a stranger here, sir,” said he, touching his hat courteously; “can I be of service to you with any information as to the city?”

“I was curious to know, sir,” said I, still more puzzled by the voice than I had been by the features of the stranger, “if Miley’s Hotel, which was somewhere in the neighborhood, exists still?”

“It does, sir; but it has changed proprietors several times since you knew it,” replied he, significantly. “The house is yonder, where you see that large lamp. I perceive, sir, I was mistaken in supposing you a foreigner. I wish you good-evening.” And again saluting me, he resumed his way.

As I crossed the street towards the hotel, I remarked that he turned as if to watch me, and became more than ever embarrassed as to who he might be.

The doorway of the hotel was crowded with loungers and idlers of every class, from the loitering man about town to the ragged newsvendor, between whom, whatever disparity of condition existed, a tone of the most free-and-easy condition prevailed; the newsmen interpolating, amid the loud announcements of the latest intelligence, the reply to the observation beside him.

One figure was conspicuous in the group. He was a short, dwarfish creature, with an enormous head, covered with a fell of black hair, falling in masses down his back and on his shoulders. A pair of fierce, fiery black eyes glared beneath his heavy brows; and a large, thick-lipped mouth moved with all the glib eloquence of his class and calling. Fearfully distorted legs and club feet gave to his gait a rolling motion, which added to the singularity of his whole appearance.

Terry Regan was then at the head of his walk in Dublin; and to his capacious lungs and voluble tongue were committed the announcement of those great events which, from time to time, were given to the Irish public through the columns of the “Correspondent” and the “Dublin Journal.”

I soon found myself in the crowd around this celebrated character, who was, as usual, extolling the great value of that night’s paper by certain brief suggestions regarding its contents.

“Here’s the whole, full, and true account (bad luck to the less!) of the great and sanguinary battle between Boney and the Roosians; with all the particklars about the killed, wounded, and missing; with what Boney said when it was over.”

“What was that, Terry?”

“Hould yer peace, ye spalpeen! Is it to the likes of yez I ‘d be telling cabinet sacrets? (Here, yer honor), – ‘Falkner,’ is it, or ‘The Saunders’. With the report of Mr. O’Gogorman’s grand speech in Ennis on the Catholic claims. There’s, yer sowl, there’s fippence worth any day ay the week. More be token, the letter from Jemmy O’Brien to his wife, wid an elegant epic poem called ‘The Gauger.’ Bloody news, gentlemen! bloody news! Won’t yez sport a tester for a sight of a real battle, and ten thousand kilt; with ‘The Whole Duty of an Informer, in two easy lessons.’ The price of stocks and shares – Ay, Mr. O’Hara, and what boroughs is bringing in the market.”

This last sally was directed towards a large, red-faced man, who good-humoredly joined in the laugh against himself.

“And who’s this, boys?” cried the fellow, turning suddenly his piercing eyes on me, as I endeavored, step by step, to reach the door of the hotel. “Hurrool look at his beard, acushla! On my conscience, I wouldn’t wonder if it was General Hoche himself. ‘Tis late yer come, sir,” said he, addressing me directly; “there’s no fun here now at all, barrin’ what Beresford has in the riding-house.”

“Get away, you ruffian!” said a well-dressed and respectable-looking man, somewhat past the middle of life; “how dare you permit your tongue to take liberties with a stranger? Allow me to make room for you, sir,” continued he, as he politely made an opening in the crowd, and suffered me to enter the house.

“Ah, counsellor, dear, don’t be cross,” whined out the newsvendor; “sure, isn’t it wid the bad tongue we both make our bread. And here,” vociferated he once more, – “and here ye have the grand dinner at the Lord Mayor’s, wid all the speeches and toasts; wid the glorious, pious, and immortial memory of King William, who delivered us from Popery (by pitched caps), from slavery (by whipping), from brass money (by bad ha’pence), and from wooden shoes (by bare feet). Haven’t we reason to bless his – ? Ay, the heavens be his bed! ‘Tis like Molly Crownahon’s husband he was.”

“How was that, Terry?” asked a gentleman near.

“Take a ‘Saunders,’ yer honor, and I ‘ll tell you.”

“Here, then, here’s fippence; and now for the explanation.”

“Molly Crownahon, yer honor, was, like us poor craytures, always grateful and contented wid the Lord’s goodness to us, even in taking away our chief comfort and blessing, – the darling up there on the horse! (Ah, ‘tis an elegant sate ye have, without stirrups!) And she went one day to say a handful of prayers oyer his grave, – the husband’s, ye mind, – and sure if she did, when she knelt down on the grass she sprung up again as quick as she went down, for the nettles was all over the place entirely. ‘Bad scran to ye, Peter!’ says she, as she rubbed her legs, – ‘bad scran to ye! living or dead, there was always a sting in ye.’”

As the latter part of this speech was addressed in a tone of apostrophe to the statue of King William, it was received by the assembled crowd with a roar of laughter.

By this time I had entered the house, and only bethought me how little suited was the great hotel of the city to pretensions as humble as mine. It was now, however, too late to retreat, and I entered the coffee-room, carrying my knapsack in my hand. As I passed up the room in search of a vacant table, the looks of astonishment my appearance excited on each side were most palpable evidences that the company considered me as an interloper. While some contented themselves with a stare of steady surprise, others, less guarded in their impertinence, whispered with, and even winked at their neighbors, to attract attention towards me.

Offensive as this unquestionably was, it amazed even more than it annoyed me. In France, such a display of feeling would have been impossible; and the humblest soldier of the army would not have been so received had he deemed fit to enter Beauvilliers’ or Véry’s.

Whether hurt at this conduct, and consequently more alive to affront from any quarter, or that the waiters participated in the sentiments of their betters, I cannot exactly say; but I certainly thought their manner even less equivocally betrayed the same desire of impertinence. This was not long a mere suspicion on my part; for on inquiring whether I could have a room for the night, the waiter, touching my knapsack, which lay on the ground beside me, with his foot, replied, —

“Is this your luggage, sir?”

Amazement so completely mastered my indignation at this insolence, that I could make no answer but by a look. This had its effect, however; and the fellow, without further delay, bustled off to make the inquiry. He returned in a few minutes with a civil message, that I could be accommodated, and having placed before me the simple meal I ordered, retired.

As I sat over my supper, I could not help feeling that unless memory played me false, the company were little like the former frequenters of this house. I remembered it of old, when Bubbleton and his brother officers came there; and when the rooms were thronged with members of both Houses of Parliament, – when peers and gentlemen of the first families were grouped about the windows and fireplaces, and the highest names of the land were heard in the din of recognition; handsome equipages and led horses stood before the doors. But now the ragged mob without was scarce a less worthy successor to the brilliant display than were the company within to the former visitants. A tone of pretentious impertinence, an air of swagger and mock defiance, – the most opposite to the polished urbanity which once prevailed, – was now conspicuous; and in their loud speech and violent gesticulation, it was easy to mark how they had degenerated from that high standard which made the Irish gentleman of his day the most polished man of Europe.

If in appearance and manner they fell far short of those my memory recalled, their conversation more markedly still displayed the long interval between them. Here, of old, were retailed the latest news of the debate, – the last brilliant thing of Grattan, or the last biting retort of Flood; here came, hot from debate, the great champions of either party to relax and recruit for fresh efforts; and in the groups that gathered around them you might learn how great genius can diffuse its influence and scatter intelligence around it, – as the Nile waters spread plenty and abundance wherever they flow: high and noble sentiments, holy aspirations and eloquent thoughts, made an atmosphere, to breathe which was to feel an altered nature. But now a vapid mixture of conceit and slang had usurped the place of these, and a tone of vulgar self-sufficiency unhappily too much in keeping with the externals of those who displayed it: the miserable contentions of different factions had replaced the bolder strife of opposite parties, and provincialism had put its stamp on everything. The nation, too, if I might trust my ears with what fell around me, had lost all memory of its once great names, and new candidates for popular favor figured in their places.

Such were some of the changes I could mark, even as I sat. But my attention was speedily drawn from them by a circumstance more nearly concerning myself. This was the appearance in the coffee-room of the gentleman who first addressed me in the street.

As he passed round the room, followed by a person whose inferiority was evident, he was recognized by most of those present, many of whom shook him warmly by the hand, and pressed him to join their parties. But this he declined, as he continued to walk slowly on, scrutinizing each face as he went. At last I saw his eyes turn towards me. It was scarcely a glance, so rapid was it, and so quickly were his looks directed to a different quarter; but I could mark that he whispered something to a person who followed, and then, after carelessly turning over a newspaper on the table, sauntered from the room. As he did so, the shaggy head of the dwarf newsvendor peeped in, and the great black eyes took a survey of the coffee-room, till finally they settled on me.

“Ah!” cried the fellow, with a strange blending of irony and compassion in his voice; “be gorra, I knew how it would be, – the major has ye!” At this a general laugh broke out from all present, and every eye was fixed on me.

Meanwhile the follower had taken his place nearly opposite me at the table, and was busily engaged examining a paper which he had taken from his pocket.

“May I ask, sir, if your name be Burke?” said he, in a low voice, across the table.

I started with amazement to hear my name pronounced where I believed myself so completely a stranger, and in my astonishment, forgot to answer.

“I was asking, sir – ” repeated he.

“Yes, you are quite correct,” interrupted I; “that is my name. May I beg to know, in return, for what purpose you make the inquiry?”

“Thomas Burke, sir?” continued he, inattentive to my observation, and apparently about to write the name on the paper before him.

I nodded, and he wrote down the words.

“That saves a deal of trouble to all of us, sir,” said he, as he finished writing. “This is a warrant for your arrest; but the major is quite satisfied if you can give bail for your appearance.”

“Arrest!” repeated I; “on what charge am I arrested?”

“You’ll hear in the morning, I suppose,” said he, quietly. “What shall we say about the bail? Have you any acquaintance or friend in town?”

“Neither; I am a perfect stranger here. But if you are authorized to arrest me, I here surrender myself at once.”

By this time, several persons of the coffee-room had approached the table, and among the rest the gentleman who so politely made way for me in the crowd to reach the door.

“What is it, Roche?” said he, addressing the man at the table; “a warrant?”

“Yes, sir; for this gentleman here. But we can take bail, if he has it.”

“I have told you already that I am a stranger, and know no one here.”

The gentleman threw his eyes over the warrant, and then looking me steadily in the face, muttered in a whisper to the officer, “Why, he must have been a boy, a mere child, at the time.”

“Very true, sir; but the major says it must be done. Maybe you’d bail him yourself.”

These words were added in a tone of half irony, as the fellow gave a sly look beneath his eyelashes.

“I tell you, again,” said I, impatient at the whole scene, “I am quite ready to accompany you.”

“Is this your name, sir?” said the strange gentleman, addressing me, as he pointed to the warrant.

“Yes,” interposed the officer, “there’s no doubt about that; he gave it himself.”

“Come, come, then, Roche,” said he, cajolingly; “these are not times for undue strictness. Let the gentleman remain where he is to-night, and to-morrow he will attend you. You can remain here, if you like, with him.”

“If you say so, I suppose we may do it,” replied the officer, as he folded up the paper, and arose from the table.

“Yes, yes; that’s the proper course. And now,” said he, addressing me, “will you permit me to join you while I finish this bottle of claret?”

I could have no objection to so pleasant a proposal; and thus, for the time at least, ended this disagreeable affair.

CHAPTER XXXV. AN UNFORSEEN EVIL

“I perceive, sir,” said the stranger, seating himself at my table, “they are desirous to restore an antiquated custom in regard to you. I thought the day of indemnities was past and gone forever.”

“I am ignorant to what you allude.”

“The authorities would make you out an emissary of France, sir, – as if France had not enough on her hands already, without embroiling herself in a quarrel from which no benefit could accrue; not to speak of the little likelihood that any one on such an errand would take up his abode, as you have, in the most public hotel of Dublin.”

“I have no apprehensions as to any charges they may bring against me. I am conscious of no crime, saving having left my country a boy, and returning to it a man.”

“You were in the service of France, then?”

“Yes; since 1801 I have been a soldier.”

“So long? You must have been but a mere boy when you quitted Ireland. How have they connected you with the troubles of that period?”

I hesitated for a second or two, uncertain what answer, if any, I should return to this abrupt question. A glance at the manly and frank expression of the stranger’s face soon satisfied me that no unworthy curiosity had prompted the inquiry; and I told him in a few words, how, as a child, the opinions of the patriotic party had won me over to embark in a cause I could neither fathom nor understand. I traced out rapidly the few leading events of my early career down to the last evening I spent in Ireland. When I came to this part of my story, the stranger became unusually attentive, and more than once questioned me respecting the origin of my quarrel with Crofts, and the timely appearance of Darby; of whose name and character, however, I gave him no information, merely speaking of him as an old and attached follower of my family.

“Since that period, then, you have not been in Ireland?” said he, as I concluded.

“Never: nor had I any intention of returning until lately, when circumstances induced me to leave the Emperor’s service; and from very uncertainty I came back here, without well knowing why.”

“Of course, then, you have never heard the catastrophe of your adventure with Crofts. It was a lucky hit for him.”

“How so? I don’t understand you.”

“Simply this: Crofts was discovered in the morning, severely wounded, where you left him; his account being, that he had been waylaid by a party of rebels, who had obtained the countersign of the night, and passed the sentry in various disguises. You yourself – for so, at least, I surmise it must have been – were designated the prime mover of the scheme, and a Government reward was offered for your apprehension. Crofts was knighted, and appointed to the staff, – the reward of his loyalty and courage; of the exact details of which my memory is unfortunately little tenacious.”

“And the truth of the occurrence was never known?”

“What I have told you is the only version current. I have reason to remember so much of it, for I was then, and am still, one of the legal advisers of the Crown, and was consulted on the case; of which, I confess, I always had my misgivings. There was a rage, however, for rewarding loyalty, as it was termed at the period, and the story went the round of the papers. Now, I fancy Crofts would just as soon not see you back again; he has made all he can of the adventure, and would as lief have it quietly forgotten.”

“But can I suffer it to rest here? Is such an imputation to lie on my character as he would cast on me?”

“Take no steps in the matter on that score: vindication is time enough when the attack is made directly; besides, where should you find your witness? where is the third party who could prove your innocence, and that all you did was in self-defence? Without his testimony, your story would go for nothing. No, no; be well satisfied if the charge is suffered to sleep, which is not unlikely. Crofts would scarcely like to confess that his antagonist was little more than a child; his prowess would gain nothing by the avowal. Besides, the world goes well with him latterly; it is but a month ago, I think, he succeeded unexpectedly to a large landed property.”

The stranger, whose name was M’Dougall, continued to talk for some time longer; most kindly volunteered to advise me in the difficult position I found myself; and having given me his address in town, wished me a goodnight and departed.

It was to no purpose I laid my head on my pillow. Tired and fatigued as I was, I could not sleep; the prospect of fresh troubles awaiting me made me restless and feverish, and I longed for day to break, that I might manfully confront whatever danger was before me, and oppose a stout heart to the arrows of adverse fortune. My accidental meeting with the stranger also reassured my courage; and I felt gratified to think that such rencontres in life are the sunny spots which illumine our career in the world, the harbingers of bright days to come.

This feeling was still more strongly impressed on me as I entered the small room on the ground-floor at the Castle, where was the secretary’s office, and beheld M’Dougall seated in an armchair, reading the newspaper of the day. I could not help connecting his presence there with some kindly intention towards me, and already regarded him as my friend. Major Barton stood at the secretary’s side, and whispered from time to time in his ear.

“I have before me certain information, sir,” said the secretary, addressing me, “that you were connected with parties who took an active part in the late rebellion in this country, and by them sent over to France to negotiate co-operation and assistance from that quarter,” (Barton here whispered something, and the secretary resumed), “and in continuance of this scheme are at present here.”

“I have only to observe, sir, that I left Ireland a mere boy, when, whatever my opinions might have been, they were, I suspect, of small moment to his Majesty’s Government; that I have served some years in the French army, during which period I neither corresponded with any one here, nor had intercourse with any from Ireland; and lastly, that I have come back unaccredited by any party, not having, as I believe, a single acquaintance in the island.”

“Do you still hold a commission in the French service?”

“No, sir; I resigned my grade as captain some time since.”

“What were your reasons for that step?”

“They were of a purely personal nature, having no concern with politics of any sort; I should, therefore, ask of you not to demand them. I can only say, they reflect neither on my honor nor my loyalty.”

“His loyalty! Would you ask him, sir, how he applies the term, and to what sovereign and what government the obedience is rendered?” said Barton, with a half smile of malicious meaning.

“Very true, Barton; the question is most pertinent.”

“When I said loyalty, sir,” said I, in answer, “I confess I did not express myself as clearly as I intended. I meant, however, that as an Irishman, and a subject of his Majesty George the Third, as I now am, no act of mine in the French service ever compromised me.”

“Why, surely you fought against the allies of your own country?”.

“True, sir. I speak only with reference to the direct interests of England. I was the soldier of the Emperor, but never a spy under his Government.”

“Your name is amongst those who never claimed the indemnity? How is this?”

“I never heard of it; I never knew such an act was necessary. I am not guilty of any crime, nor do I see any reason to seek a favor.”

“Well, well; the gracious intentions of the Crown lead us to look leniently on the past. A moderate bail for your appearance when called on, and your own recognizances for the same object, will suffice.”

“I am quite willing to do the latter; but as to bail, I repeat it, I have not one I could ask for such a service.”

“No relative? no friend?”

“Come, come, young gentleman,” said M’Dougall, speaking for the first time; “recollect yourself. Try if you can’t remember some one who would assist you at this conjuncture.”

Basset was the only name I could think of; and however absurd the idea of a service from such a quarter, I deemed that, as my brother’s agent, he would scarce refuse me. I thought that Barton gave a very peculiar grin as I mentioned the name; but my own securities being entered into, and a few formal questions answered, I was told I was at liberty to seek out the bail required.

Once more in the streets, I turned my steps towards Basset’s house, where I hoped, at all events, to learn some tidings of my brother. I was not long in arriving at the street, and speedily recognized the old house, whose cobwebbed windows and unwashed look reminded me of former times. The very sound of the heavy iron knocker awoke its train of recollections; and when the door was opened, and I saw the narrow hall, with its cracked lamp and damp, discolored walls, the whole heart-sinking with which they once inspired me came back again, and I thought of Tony Basset when his very name was a thing of terror to me.