Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon Volume I Part 15

"Such, my dear sir, will be the proudest task of my life. The facts I have heard here this evening have made so profound an impression upon me that I burn for the moment when I can make them known to the world at large. To think--just to think that a portion of this beautiful island should be steeped in poverty; that the people not only live upon the mere potatoes, but are absolutely obliged to wear the skins for raiment, as Mr. Doolan has just mentioned to me!"

"'Which accounts for our cultivation of lumpers,' added Mr. Doolan, 'they being the largest species of the root, and best adapted for wearing apparel.'

"'I should deem myself culpable--indeed I should--did I not inform my countrymen upon the real condition of this great country.'

"'Why, after your great opportunities for judging,' said Phil, 'you ought to speak out. You've seen us in a way, I may fairly affirm, few Englishmen have, and heard more.'

"'That's it,--that's the very thing, Mr. Macnamara. I've looked at you more closely; I've watched you more narrowly; I've witnessed what the French call your _vie intime_.'

"'Begad you have,' said old Burke, with a grin, 'and profited by it to the utmost.'

"'I've been a spectator of your election contests; I've partaken of your hospitality; I've witnessed your popular and national sports; I've been present at your weddings, your fairs, your wakes; but no,--I was forgetting,--I never saw a wake.'

"'Never saw a wake?' repeated each of the company in turn, as though the gentleman was uttering a sentiment of very dubious veracity.

"'Never,' said Mr. Prettyman, rather abashed at this proof of his incapacity to instruct his English friends upon _all_ matters of Irish interest.

"'Well, then,' said Macnamara, 'with a blessing, we'll show you one.

Lord forbid that we shouldn't do the honors of our poor country to an intelligent foreigner when he's good enough to come among us.'

"'Peter,' said he, turning to the servant behind him, 'who's dead hereabouts?'

"'Sorra one, yer honor. Since the scrimmage at Portumna the place is peaceable.'

"'Who died lately in the neighborhood?'

"'The widow Macbride, yer honor.'

"'Couldn't they take her up again, Peter? My friend here never saw a wake.'

"'I'm afeered not; for it was the boys roasted her, and she wouldn't be a decent corpse for to show a stranger,' said Peter, in a whisper.

"Mr. Prettyman shuddered at these peaceful indications of the neighborhood, and said nothing.

"'Well, then, Peter, tell Jimmy Divine to take the old musket in my bedroom, and go over to the Clunagh bog,--he can't go wrong. There's twelve families there that never pay a halfpenny rent; and _when it's done_, let him give notice to the neighborhood, and we'll have a rousing wake.'

"'You don't mean, Mr. Macnamara,--you don't mean to say--' stammered out the c.o.c.kney, with a face like a ghost.

"'I only mean to say,' said Phil, laughing, 'that you're keeping the decanter very long at your right hand.'

"Burke contrived to interpose before the Englishman could ask any explanation of what he had just heard,--and for some minutes he could only wait in impatient anxiety,--when a loud report of a gun close beside the house attracted the attention of the guests. The next moment old Peter entered, his face radiant with smiles.

"'Well, what's that?' said Macnamara.

"''T was Jimmy, yer honor. As the evening was rainy, he said he'd take one of the neighbors; and he hadn't to go far, for Andy Moore was going home, and he brought him down at once.'

"'Did he shoot him?' said Mr. Prettyman, while cold perspiration broke over his forehead. 'Did he murder the man?'

"'Sorra murder,' said Peter, disdainfully. 'But why shouldn't he shoot him when the master bid him?'

"I needn't tell you more, Charley; but in ten minutes after, feigning some excuse to leave the room, the terrified c.o.c.kney took flight, and offering twenty guineas for a horse to convey him to Athlone, he left Galway, fully convinced that they don't yet know us on the other side of the Channel."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE JOURNEY.

The election concluded, the turmoil and excitement of the contest over, all was fast resuming its accustomed routine around us, when one morning my uncle informed me that I was at length to leave my native county and enter upon the great world as a student of Trinity College, Dublin. Although long since in expectation of this eventful change, it was with no slight feeling of emotion I contemplated the step which, removing me at once from all my early friends and a.s.sociations, was to surround me with new companions and new influences, and place before me very different objects of ambition from those I had hitherto been regarding.

My destiny had been long ago decided. The army had had its share of the family, who brought little more back with them from the wars than a short allowance of members and shattered const.i.tutions; the navy had proved, on more than one occasion, that the fate of the O'Malleys did not incline to hanging; so that, in Irish estimation, but one alternative remained, and that was the bar. Besides, as my uncle remarked, with great truth and foresight, "Charley will be tolerably independent of the public, at all events; for even if they never send him a brief, there's law enough in the family to last _his_ time,"--a rather novel reason, by-the-bye, for making a man a lawyer, and which induced Sir Harry, with his usual clearness, to observe to me:--

"Upon my conscience, boy, you are in luck. If there had been a Bible in the house, I firmly believe he'd have made you a parson."

Considine alone, of all my uncle's advisers, did not concur in this determination respecting me. He set forth, with an eloquence that certainly converted _me_, that my head was better calculated for bearing hard knocks than unravelling knotty points, that a shako would become it infinitely better than a wig; and declared, roundly, that a boy who began so well and had such very pretty notions about shooting was positively thrown away in the Four Courts. My uncle, however, was firm, and as old Sir Harry supported him, the day was decided against us, Considine murmuring as he left the room something that did not seem quite a brilliant antic.i.p.ation of the success awaiting me in my legal career. As for myself, though only a silent spectator of the debate, all my wishes were with the count. Prom my earliest boyhood a military life had been my strongest desire; the roll of the drum, and the shrill fife that played through the little village, with its ragged troop of recruits following, had charms for me I cannot describe; and had a choice been allowed me, I would infinitely rather have been a sergeant in the dragoons than one of his Majesty's learned in the law. If, then, such had been the cherished feeling of many a year, how much more strongly were my aspirations heightened by the events of the last few days. The tone of superiority I had witnessed in Hammersley, whose conduct to me at parting had placed him high in my esteem; the quiet contempt of civilians implied in a thousand sly ways; the exalted estimate of his own profession,--at once wounded my pride and stimulated my ambition; and lastly, more than all, the avowed preference that Lucy Dashwood evinced for a military life, were stronger allies than my own conviction needed to make me long for the army. So completely did the thought possess me that I felt, if I were not a soldier, I cared not what became of me. Life had no other object of ambition for me than military renown, no other success for which I cared to struggle, or would value when obtained. "_Aut Caesar aut nullus_," thought I; and when my uncle determined I should be a lawyer, I neither murmured nor objected, but hugged myself in the prophecy of Considine that hinted pretty broadly, "the devil a stupider fellow ever opened a brief; but he'd have made a slas.h.i.+ng light dragoon."

The preliminaries were not long in arranging. It was settled that I should be immediately despatched to Dublin to the care of Dr. Mooney, then a junior fellow in the University, who would take me into his especial charge; while Sir Harry was to furnish me with a letter to his old friend, Doctor Barret, whose advice and a.s.sistance he estimated at a very high price. Provided with such doc.u.ments I was informed that the gates of knowledge were more than half ajar for me, without an effort upon my part. One only portion of all the arrangements I heard with anything like pleasure; it was decided that my man Mickey was to accompany me to Dublin, and remain with me during my stay.

It was upon a clear, sharp morning in January, of the year 18--, that I took my place upon the box-seat of the old Galway mail and set out on my journey. My heart was depressed, and my spirits were miserably low. I had all that feeling of sadness which leave-taking inspires, and no sustaining prospect to cheer me in the distance. For the first time in my life, I had seen a tear glisten in my poor uncle's eye, and heard his voice falter as he said, "Farewell!" Notwithstanding the difference of age, we had been perfectly companions together; and as I thought now over all the thousand kindnesses and affectionate instances of his love I had received, my heart gave way, and the tears coursed slowly down my cheeks. I turned to give one last look at the tall chimneys and the old woods, my earliest friends; but a turn of the road had shut out the prospect, and thus I took my leave of Galway.

My friend Mickey, who sat behind with the guard, partic.i.p.ated but little in my feelings of regret. The potatoes in the metropolis could scarcely be as wet as the lumpers in Scariff; he had heard that whiskey was not dearer, and looked forward to the other delights of the capital with a longing heart. Meanwhile, resolved that no portion of his career should be lost, he was lightening the road by anecdote and song, and held an audience of four people, a very crusty-looking old guard included, in roars of laughter.

Mike had contrived, with his usual _savoir faire_, to make himself very agreeable to an extremely pretty-looking country girl, around whose waist he had most lovingly pa.s.sed his arm under pretence of keeping her from falling, and to whom, in the midst of all his attentions to the party at large, he devoted himself considerably, pressing his suit with all the aid of his native minstrelsy.

"Hould me tight, Miss Matilda, dear."

"My name's Mary Brady, av ye plase."

"Ay, and I do plase.

'Oh, Mary Brady, you are my darlin', You are my looking-gla.s.s from night till morning; I'd rayther have ye without one farthen, Nor Shusey Gallagher and her house and garden.'

May I never av I wouldn't then; and ye needn't be laughing."

"Is his honor at home?"

This speech was addressed to a gaping country fellow that leaned on his spade to see the coach pa.s.s.

"Is his honor at home? I've something for him from Mr. Davern."

Mickey well knew that few western gentlemen were without constant intercourse with the Athlone attorney. The poor countryman accordingly hastened through the fence and pursued the coach with all speed for above a mile, Mike pretending all the time to be in the greatest anxiety for his overtaking them, until at last, as he stopped in despair, a hearty roar of laughter told him that, in Mickey's _parlance_, he was "sould."

"Taste it, my dear; devil a harm it'll do ye. It never paid the king sixpence."

Here he filled a little horn vessel from a black bottle he carried, accompanying the action with a song, the air to which, if any of my readers feel disposed to sing it, I may observe, bore a resemblance to the well-known, "A Fig for Saint Denis of France."

POTTEEN, GOOD LUCK TO YE, DEAR.