Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2

Charles James Lever

Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2

CHAPTER I

THE DOCTOR’S TALE.1

“It is now some fifteen years since – if it wasn’t for O’Shaughnessy’s wrinkles, I could not believe it five – we were quartered in Loughrea. There were, besides our regiment, the Fiftieth and the Seventy-third, and a troop or two of horse artillery, and the whole town was literally a barrack, and as you may suppose, the pleasantest place imaginable. All the young ladies, and indeed all those that had got their brevet some years before, came flocking into the town, not knowing but the Devil might persuade a raw ensign or so to marry some of them.

“Such dinner parties, such routs and balls, never were heard of west of Athlone. The gayeties were incessant; and if good feeding, plenty of claret, short whist, country dances, and kissing could have done the thing, there wouldn’t have been a bachelor with a red coat for six miles around.

“You know the west, O’Mealey, so I needn’t tell you what the Galway girls are like: fine, hearty, free-and-easy, talking, laughing devils, but as deep and ‘cute as a Master in Chancery; ready for any fun or merriment, but always keeping a sly look-out for a proposal or a tender acknowledgment, which – what between the heat of a ball-room, whiskey negus, white satin shoes, and a quarrel with your guardian – it’s ten to one you fall into before you’re a week in the same town with them.

“As for the men, I don’t admire them so much: pleasant and cheerful enough when they’re handicapping the coat off your back, and your new tilbury for a spavined pony and a cotton umbrella, but regular devils if you come to cross them the least in life; nothing but ten paces, three shots apiece, to begin and end with something like Roger de Coverley, when every one has a pull at his neighbor. I’m not saying they’re not agreeable, well-informed, and mild in their habits; but they lean overmuch to corduroys and coroners’ inquests for one’s taste farther south. However, they’re a fine people, take them all in all; and if they were not interfered with, and their national customs invaded with road-making, petty-sessions, grand-jury laws, and a stray commission now and then, they are capable of great things, and would astonish the world.

“But as I was saying, we were ordered to Loughrea after being fifteen months in detachments about Birr, Tullamore, Kilbeggan, and all that country; the change was indeed a delightful one, and we soon found ourselves the centre of the most marked and determined civilities. I told you they were wise people in the west; this was their calculation: the line – ours was the Roscommon militia – are here to-day, there to-morrow; they may be flirting in Tralee this week, and fighting on the Tagus the next; not that there was any fighting there in those times, but then there was always Nova Scotia and St. John’s, and a hundred other places that a Galway young lady knew nothing about, except that people never came back from them. Now, what good, what use was there in falling in love with them? Mere transitory and passing pleasure that was. But as for us: there we were; if not in Kilkenny we were in Cork. Safe out and come again; no getting away under pretence of foreign service; no excuse for not marrying by any cruel pictures of the colonies, where they make spatch-cocks of the officers’ wives and scrape their infant families to death with a small tooth-comb. In a word, my dear O’Mealey, we were at a high premium; and even O’Shaughnessy, with his red head and the legs you see, had his admirers. There now, don’t be angry, Dan; the men, at least, were mighty partial to you.

“Loughrea, if it was a pleasant, was a very expensive place. White gloves and car hire, – there wasn’t a chaise in the town, – short whist, too (God forgive me if I wrong them, but I wonder were they honest), cost money; and as our popularity rose, our purses fell; till at length, when the one was at the flood, the other was something very like low water.

“Now, the Roscommon was a beautiful corps; no petty jealousies, no little squabbling among the officers, no small spleen between the major’s wife and the paymaster’s sister, – all was amiable, kind, brotherly, and affectionate. To proceed, I need only mention one fine trait of them, – no man ever refused to indorse a brother officer’s bill. To think of asking the amount or even the date would be taken personally; and thus we went on mutually aiding and assisting each other, – the colonel drawing on me, I on the major, the senior captain on the surgeon, and so on, a regular cross-fire of ‘promises to pay,’ all stamped and regular.

“Not but the system had its inconveniences; for sometimes an obstinate tailor or bootmaker would make a row for his money, and then we’d be obliged to get up a little quarrel between the drawer and the acceptor of the bill; they couldn’t speak for some days, and a mutual friend to both would tell the creditor that the slightest imprudence on his part would lead to bloodshed; ‘and the Lord help him! if there was a duel, he’d be proved the whole cause of it.’ This and twenty other plans were employed; and finally, the matter would be left to arbitration among our brother officers, and I need not say, they behaved like trumps. But notwithstanding all this, we were frequently hard pressed for cash; as the colonel said, ‘It’s a mighty expensive corps.’ Our dress was costly; not that it had much lace and gold on it, but that, what between falling on the road at night, shindies at mess, and other devilment, a coat lasted no time. Wine, too, was heavy on us; for though we often changed our wine merchant, and rarely paid him, there was an awful consumption at the mess!

“Now, what I have mentioned may prepare you for the fact that before we were eight weeks in garrison, Shaugh and myself, upon an accurate calculation of our conjoint finances, discovered that except some vague promises of discounting here and there through the town, and seven and fourpence in specie, we were innocent of any pecuniary treasures. This was embarrassing; we had both embarked in several small schemes of pleasurable amusement, had a couple of hunters each, a tandem, and a running account – I think it galloped– at every shop in the town.

“Let me pause for a moment here, O’Mealey, while I moralize a little in a strain I hope may benefit you. Have you ever considered – of course you have not, you’re too young and unreflecting – how beautifully every climate and every soil possesses some one antidote or another to its own noxious influences? The tropics have their succulent and juicy fruits, cooling and refreshing; the northern latitudes have their beasts with fur and warm skin to keep out the frost-bites; and so it is in Ireland. Nowhere on the face of the habitable globe does a man contract such habits of small debt, and nowhere, I’ll be sworn, can he so easily get out of any scrape concerning them. They have their tigers in the east, their antelopes in the south, their white bears in Norway, their buffaloes in America; but we have an animal in Ireland that beats them all hollow, – a country attorney!

“Now, let me introduce you to Mr. Matthew Donevan. Mat, as he was familiarly called by his numerous acquaintances, was a short, florid, rosy little gentleman of some four or five-and-forty, with a well-curled wig of the fairest imaginable auburn, the gentle wave of the front locks, which played in infantine loveliness upon his little bullet forehead, contrasting strongly enough with a cunning leer of his eye, and a certain nisi prius laugh that however it might please a client, rarely brought pleasurable feelings to his opponent in a cause.

“Mat was a character in his way; deep, double, and tricky in everything that concerned his profession, he affected the gay fellow, – liked a jolly dinner at Brown’s Hotel, would go twenty miles to see a steeple-chase and a coursing match, bet with any one when the odds were strong in his favor, with an easy indifference about money that made him seem, when winning, rather the victim of good luck than anything else. As he kept a rather pleasant bachelor’s house, and liked the military much, we soon became acquainted. Upon him, therefore, for reasons I can’t explain, both our hopes reposed; and Shaugh and myself at once agreed that if Mat could not assist us in our distresses, the case was a bad one.

“A pretty little epistle was accordingly concocted, inviting the worthy attorney to a small dinner at five o’clock the next day, intimating that we were to be perfectly alone, and had a little business to discuss. True to the hour, Mat was there; and as if instantly guessing that ours was no regular party of pleasure, his look, dress, and manner were all in keeping with the occasion, – quiet, subdued, and searching.

“When the claret had been superseded by the whiskey, and the confidential hours were approaching, by an adroit allusion to some heavy wager then pending, we brought our finances upon the tapis. The thing was done beautifully, – an easy adagio movement, no violent transition; but hang me if old Mat didn’t catch the matter at once.

“‘Oh, it’s there ye are, Captain!’ said he, with his peculiar grin. ‘Two-and-sixpence in the pound, and no assets.’

“‘The last is nearer the mark, my old boy,’ said Shaugh, blurting out the whole truth at once. The wily attorney finished his tumbler slowly, as if giving himself time for reflection, and then, smacking his lips in a preparatory manner, took a quick survey of the room with his piercing green eye.

“‘A very sweet mare of yours that little mouse-colored one is, with the dip in the back; and she has a trifling curb – may be it’s a spavin, indeed – in the near hind-leg. You gave five-and-twenty for her, now, I’ll be bound?’

“‘Sixty guineas, as sure as my name’s Dan,’ said Shaugh, not at all pleased at the value put upon his hackney; ‘and as to spavin and curb, I’ll wager double the sum she has neither the slightest trace of one nor the other.’

“‘I’ll not take the bet,’ said Mat, dryly. ‘Money’s scarce in these parts.’

“This hit silenced us both; and our friend continued, —

“‘Then there’s the bay horse, – a great strapping, leggy beast he is for a tilbury; and the hunters, worth nothing here; they don’t know this country. Them’s neat pistols; and the tilbury is not bad – ’

“‘Confound you!’ said I, losing all patience; ‘we didn’t ask you here to appraise our movables. We want to raise the wind without that.’

“‘I see, I perceive,’ said Mat, taking a pinch of snuff very leisurely as he spoke, – ‘I see. Well, that is difficult, very difficult just now. I’ve mortgaged every acre of ground in the two counties near us, and a sixpence more is not to be had that way. Are you lucky at the races?’

“‘Never win a sixpence.’

“‘What can you do at whist?’

“‘Revoke, and get cursed by my partner; devil a more!’

“‘That’s mighty bad, for otherwise, we might arrange something for you. Well, I only see one thing for it; you must marry. A wife with some money will get you out of your present difficulties; and we’ll manage that easily enough.’

“‘Come, Dan,’ said I, for Shaugh was dropping asleep; ‘cheer up, old fellow. Donevan has found the way to pull us through our misfortunes. A girl with forty thousand pounds, the best cock shooting in Ireland, an old family, a capital cellar, all await ye, – rouse up, there!’

“‘I’m convanient,’ said Shaugh, with a look intended to be knowing, but really very tipsy.

“‘I didn’t say much for her personal attractions, Captain,’ said Mat; ‘nor, indeed, did I specify the exact sum; but Mrs. Rogers Dooley, of Clonakilty, might be a princess – ’

“‘And so she shall be, Mat; the O’Shaughnessys were Kings of Ennis in the time of Nero and I’m only waiting for a trifle of money to revive the title. What’s her name?’

“‘Mrs. Rogers Dooley.’

“‘Here’s her health, and long life to her, —

‘And may the Devil cut the toesOf all her foes,That we may know them by their limping.’

“This benevolent wish uttered, Dan fell flat upon the hearth-rug, and was soon sound asleep. I must hasten on; so need only say that, before we parted that night, Mat and myself had finished the half-gallon bottle of Loughrea whiskey, and concluded a treaty for the hand and fortune of Mrs. Rogers Dooley. He being guaranteed a very handsome percentage on the property, and the lady being reserved for choice between Dan and myself, which, however, I was determined should fall upon my more fortunate friend.

“The first object which presented itself to my aching senses the following morning was a very spacious card of invitation from Mr. Jonas Malone, requesting me to favor him with the seductions of my society the next evening to a ball; at the bottom of which, in Mr. Donevan’s hand, I read, —

“‘Don’t fail; you know who is to be there. I’ve not been idle since I saw you. Would the captain take twenty-five for the mare?’

“‘So far so good,’ thought I, as entering O’Shaughnessy’s quarters, I discovered him endeavoring to spell out his card, which, however, had no postscript. We soon agreed that Mat should have his price; so sending a polite answer to the invitation, we despatched a still more civil note to the attorney, and begged of him, as a weak mark of esteem, to accept the mouse-colored mare as a present.”

Here O’Shaughnessy sighed deeply, and even seemed affected by the souvenir.

“Come, Dan, we did it all for the best. Oh, O’Mealey, he was a cunning fellow; but no matter. We went to the ball, and to be sure, it was a great sight. Two hundred and fifty souls, where there was not good room for the odd fifty; such laughing, such squeezing, such pressing of hands and waists in the staircase, and then such a row and riot at the top, – four fiddles, a key bugle, and a bagpipe, playing ‘Haste to the wedding,’ amidst the crash of refreshment-trays, the tramp of feet, and the sounds of merriment on all sides!

“It’s only in Ireland, after all, people have fun. Old and young, merry and morose, the gay and cross-grained, are crammed into a lively country-dance; and ill-matched, ill-suited, go jigging away together to the blast of a bad band, till their heads, half turned by the noise, the heat, the novelty, and the hubbub, they all get as tipsy as if they were really deep in liquor.

“Then there is that particularly free-and-easy tone in every one about. Here go a couple capering daintily out of the ball-room to take a little fresh air on the stairs, where every step has its own separate flirtation party; there, a riotous old gentleman, with a boarding-school girl for his partner, has plunged smack into a party at loo, upsetting cards and counters, and drawing down curses innumerable. Here are a merry knot round the refreshments, and well they may be; for the negus is strong punch, and the biscuit is tipsy cake, – and all this with a running fire of good stories, jokes, and witticisms on all sides, in the laughter for which even the droll-looking servants join as heartily as the rest.

“We were not long in finding out Mrs. Rogers, who sat in the middle of a very high sofa, with her feet just touching the floor. She was short, fat, wore her hair in a crop, had a species of shining yellow skin, and a turned-up nose, all of which were by no means prepossessing. Shaugh and myself were too hard-up to be particular, and so we invited her to dance alternately for two consecutive hours, plying her assiduously with negus during the lulls in the music.

“Supper was at last announced, and enabled us to recruit for new efforts; and so after an awful consumption of fowl, pigeon-pie, ham, and brandy cherries, Mrs. Rogers brightened up considerably, and professed her willingness to join the dancers. As for us, partly from exhaustion, partly to stimulate our energies, and in some degree to drown reflection, we drank deep, and when we reached the drawing-room, not only the agreeable guests themselves, but even the furniture, the venerable chairs, and the stiff old sofa seemed performing ‘Sir Roger de Coverley.’ How we conducted ourselves till five in the morning, let our cramps confess; for we were both bed-ridden for ten days after. However, at last Mrs. Rogers gave in, and reclining gracefully upon a window-seat, pronounced it a most elegant party, and asked me to look for her shawl. While I perambulated the staircase with her bonnet on my head, and more wearing apparel than would stock a magazine, Shaugh was roaring himself hoarse in the street, calling Mrs. Rogers’ coach.

“‘Sure, Captain,’ said the lady, with a tender leer, ‘it’s only a chair.’

“‘And here it is,’ said I, surveying a very portly-looking old sedan, newly painted and varnished, that blocked up half the hall.

“‘You’ll catch cold, my angel,’ said Shaugh, in a whisper, for he was coming it very strong by this; ‘get into the chair. Maurice, can’t you find those fellows?’ said he to me, for the chairmen had gone down-stairs, and were making very merry among the servants.

“‘She’s fast now,’ said I, shutting the door to. ‘Let us do the gallant thing, and carry her home ourselves.’ Shaugh thought this a great notion; and in a minute we mounted the poles and sallied forth, amidst a great chorus of laughing from all the footmen, maids, and teaboys that filled the passage.

“‘The big house, with the bow-window and the pillars, Captain,’ said a fellow, as we issued upon our journey. “‘I know it,’ said I. ‘Turn to the left after you pass the square.’

“‘Isn’t she heavy?’ said Shaugh, as he meandered across the narrow streets with a sidelong motion that must have suggested to our fair inside passenger some notions of a sea voyage. In truth, I must confess our progress was rather a devious one, – now zig-zagging from side to side, now getting into a sharp trot, and then suddenly pulling up at a dead stop, or running the machine chuck against a wall, to enable us to stand still and gain breath.

“‘Which way now?’ cried he, as we swung round the angle of a street and entered the large market-place; ‘I’m getting terribly tired.’

“‘Never give in, Dan. Think of Clonakilty and the old lady herself.’ Here I gave the chair a hoist that evidently astonished our fair friend, for a very imploring cry issued forth immediately after.

“‘To the right, quick-step, forward, charge!’ cried I; and we set off at a brisk trot down a steep narrow lane.

“‘Here it is now, – the light in the window. Cheer up.’

“As I said this we came short up to a fine, portly-looking doorway, with great stone pillars and cornice.

“‘Make yourself at home, Maurice,’ said he; ‘bring her in.’ So saying, we pushed forward – for the door was open – and passed boldly into a great flagged hall, silent and cold, and dark as the night itself.

“‘Are you sure we’re right?’ said he.

“‘All right,’ said I; ‘go ahead.’

“And so we did, till we came in sight of a small candle that burned dimly at a distance from us.

“‘Make for the light,’ said I; but just as I said so Shaugh slipped and fell flat on the flagway. The noise of his fall sent up a hundred echoes in the silent building, and terrified us both dreadfully. After a minute’s pause, by one consent we turned and made for the door, falling almost at every step, and frightened out of our senses, we came tumbling together into the porch, and out in the street, and never drew breath till we reached the barracks. Meanwhile let me return to Mrs. Rogers. The dear old lady, who had passed an awful time since she left the ball, had just rallied out of a fainting fit when we took to our heels; so after screaming and crying her best, she at last managed to open the top of the chair, and by dint of great exertions succeeded in forcing the door, and at length freed herself from bondage. She was leisurely groping her way round it in the dark, when her lamentations, being heard without, woke up the old sexton of the chapel, – for it was there we placed her, – who, entering cautiously with a light, no sooner caught a glimpse of the great black sedan and the figure beside it than he also took to his heels, and ran like a madman to the priest’s house.

“‘Come, your reverence, come, for the love of marcy! Sure didn’t I see him myself! Oh, wirra, wirra!’

“‘What is it, ye ould fool?’ said M’Kenny.

“‘It’s Father Con Doran, your reverence, that was buried last week, and there he is up now, coffin and all, saying a midnight Mass as lively as ever.’

“Poor Mrs. Rogers, God help her! It was a trying sight for her when the priest and the two coadjutors and three little boys and the sexton all came in to lay her spirit; and the shock she received that night, they say, she never got over.

“Need I say, my dear O’Mealey, that our acquaintance with Mrs. Rogers was closed? The dear woman had a hard struggle for it afterwards. Her character was assailed by all the elderly ladies in Loughrea for going off in our company, and her blue satin, piped with scarlet, utterly ruined by a deluge of holy water bestowed on her by the pious sexton. It was in vain that she originated twenty different reports to mystify the world; and even ten pounds spent in Masses for the eternal repose of Father Con Doran only increased the laughter this unfortunate affair gave rise to. As for us, we exchanged into the line, and foreign service took us out of the road of duns, debts, and devilment, and we soon reformed, and eschewed such low company.”

The day was breaking ere we separated; and amidst the rich and fragrant vapors that exhaled from the earth, the faint traces of sunlight dimly stealing told of the morning. My two friends set out for Torrijos, and I pushed boldly forward in the direction of the Alberche.

It was a strange thing that although but two days before the roads we were then travelling had been the line of retreat of the whole French army, not a vestige of their equipment nor a trace of their matériel had been left behind. In vain we searched each thicket by the wayside for some straggling soldier, some wounded or wearied man; nothing of the kind was to be seen. Except the deeply-rutted road, torn by the heavy wheels of the artillery, and the white ashes of a wood fire, nothing marked their progress.

Our journey was a lonely one. Not a man was to be met with. The houses stood untenanted; the doors lay open; no smoke wreathed from their deserted hearths. The peasantry had taken to the mountains; and although the plains were yellow with the ripe harvest, and the peaches hung temptingly upon the trees, all was deserted and forsaken. I had often seen the blackened walls and broken rafters, the traces of the wild revenge and reckless pillage of a retiring army. The ruined castle and the desecrated altar are sad things to look upon; but, somehow, a far heavier depression sunk into my heart as my eye ranged over the wide valleys and broad hills, all redolent of comfort, of beauty, and of happiness, and yet not one man to say, “This is my home; these are my household gods.” The birds carolled gayly in each leafy thicket; the bright stream sung merrily as it rippled through the rocks; the tall corn, gently stirred by the breeze, seemed to swell the concert of sweet sounds; but no human voice awoke the echoes there. It was as if the earth was speaking in thankfulness to its Maker, while man, – ungrateful and unworthy man, – pursuing his ruthless path of devastation and destruction, had left no being to say, “I thank Thee for all these.”

The day was closing as we drew near the Alberche, and came in sight of the watch-fires of the enemy. Far as the eye could reach their column extended, but in the dim twilight nothing could be seen with accuracy; yet from the position their artillery occupied, and the unceasing din of baggage wagons and heavy carriages towards the rear, I came to the conclusion that a still farther retreat was meditated. A picket of light cavalry was posted upon the river’s bank, and seemed to watch with vigilance the approaches to the stream.

Our bivouac was a dense copse of pine-trees, exactly opposite to the French advanced posts, and there we passed the night, – fortunately a calm and starlight one; for we dared not light fires, fearful of attracting attention.

During the long hours I lay patiently watching the movements of the enemy till the dark shadows hid all from sight; and even then, as my ears caught the challenge of a sentry or the footsteps of some officer in his round, my thoughts were riveted upon them, and a hundred vague fancies as to the future were based upon no stronger foundation than the clink of a firelock or the low-muttered song of a patrol.