Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon Volume I Part 29

"How d'ye do, General?" cried Webber, as he rode towards the trees.

"Stop, sir!" shouted Sir George.

"Good-day, Sir George," replied Webber, retiring.

"Stay where you are, Lucy," said the general as, das.h.i.+ng spurs into his horse, he sprang forward at a gallop, incensed beyond endurance that his most strict orders should be so openly and insultingly transgressed.

Webber led on to a deep hollow, where the road pa.s.sed between two smooth slopes, covered with furze-trees, and from which it emerged afterwards in the thickest and most intricate part of the Park. Sir George dashed boldly after, and in less than half a minute both were lost to my view, leaving me in breathless amazement at Master Frank's ingenuity, and some puzzle as to my own future movements.

"Now then, or never!" said I, as I pushed boldly forward, and in an instant was alongside of Miss Dashwood. Her astonishment at seeing me so suddenly increased the confusion from which I felt myself suffering, and for some minutes I could scarcely speak. At last I plucked up courage a little, and said:--

"Miss Dashwood, I have looked most anxiously, for the last four days, for the moment which chance has now given me. I wished, before I parted forever with those to whom I owe already so much, that I should at least speak my grat.i.tude ere I said good-by."

"But when do you think of going?"

"To-morrow. Captain Power, under whose command I am, has received orders to embark immediately for Portugal."

I thought--perhaps it was but a thought--that her cheek grew somewhat paler as I spoke; but she remained silent; and I, scarcely knowing what I had said, or whether I had finished, spoke not either.

"Papa, I'm sure, is not aware," said she, after a long pause, "of your intention of leaving so soon, for only last night he spoke of some letters he meant to give you to some friends in the Peninsula; besides, I know,"

here she smiled faintly,--"that he destined some excellent advice for your ears, as to your new path in life, for he has an immense opinion of the value of such to a young officer."

"I am, indeed, most grateful to Sir George, and truly never did any one stand more in need of counsel than I do." This was said half musingly, and not intended to be heard.

"Then, pray, consult papa," said she, eagerly; "he is much attached to you, and will, I am certain, do all in his power--"

"Alas! I fear not, Miss Dashwood."

"Why, what can you mean. Has anything so serious occurred?"

"No, no; I'm but misleading you, and exciting your sympathy with false pretences. Should I tell you all the truth, you would not pardon, perhaps not hear me."

"You have, indeed, puzzled me; but if there is anything in which my father--"

"Less him than his daughter," said I, fixing my eyes full upon her as I spoke. "Yes, Lucy, I feel I must confess it, cost what it may; I love you.

Stay, hear me out; I know the fruitlessness, the utter despair, that awaits such a sentiment. My own heart tells me that I am not, cannot be, loved in return; yet would I rather cherish in its core my affection, slighted and unblessed, such as it is, than own another heart. I ask for nothing, I hope for nothing; I merely entreat that, for my truth, I may meet belief, and for my heart's wors.h.i.+p of her whom alone I can love, compa.s.sion. I see that you at least pity me. Nay, one word more; I have one favor more to ask,--it is my last, my only one. Do not, when time and distance may have separated us, perhaps forever, think that the expressions I now use are prompted by a mere sudden ebullition of boyish feeling; do not attribute to the circ.u.mstance of my youth alone the warmth of the attachment I profess,--for I swear to you, by every hope that I have, that in my heart of hearts my love to you is the source and spring of every action in my life, of every aspiration in my heart; and when I cease to love you, I shall cease to feel."

"And now, farewell,--farewell forever!" I pressed her hand to my lips, gave one long, last look, turned my horse rapidly away, and ere a minute was far out of sight of where I had left her.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE ROAD.

Power was detained in town by some orders from the adjutant-general, so that I started for Cork the next morning with no other companion than my servant Mike. For the first few stages upon the road, my own thoughts sufficiently occupied me to render me insensible or indifferent to all else. My opening career, the prospects my new life as a soldier held out, my hopes of distinction, my love of Lucy with all its train of doubts and fears, pa.s.sed in review before me, and I took no note of time till far past noon. I now looked to the back part of the coach, where Mike's voice had been, as usual, in the ascendant for some time, and perceived that he was surrounded by an eager auditory of four raw recruits, who, under the care of a sergeant, were proceeding to Cork to be enrolled in their regiment.

The sergeant, whose minutes of wakefulness were only those when the coach stopped to change horses, and when he got down to mix a "summat hot," paid little attention to his followers, leaving them perfectly free in all their movements, to listen to Mike's eloquence and profit by his suggestions, should they deem fit. Master Michael's services to his new acquaintances, I began to perceive, were not exactly of the same nature as Dibdin is reported to have rendered to our navy in the late war. Far from it. His theme was no contemptuous disdain for danger; no patriotic enthusiasm to fight for home and country; no proud consciousness of British valor, mingled with the appropriate hatred of our mutual enemies,--on the contrary, Mike's eloquence was enlisted for the defendant. He detailed, and in no unimpressive way either, the hards.h.i.+ps of a soldier's life,--its dangers, its vicissitudes, its chances, its possible penalties, its inevitably small rewards; and, in fact, so completely did he work on the feelings of his hearers that I perceived more than one glance exchanged between the victims that certainly betokened anything save the resolve to fight for King George. It was at the close of a long and most powerful appeal upon the superiority of any other line in life, petty larceny and small felony inclusive, that he concluded with the following quotation:--

"Thrue for ye, boys!

'With your red scarlet coat, You're as proud as a goat, And your long cap and feather.'

But, by the piper that played before Moses! it's more whipping nor gingerbread is going on among them, av ye knew but all, and heerd the misfortune that happened to my father."

"And was he a sodger?" inquired one.

"Troth was he, more sorrow to him; and wasn't he a'most whipped one day for doing what he was bid?"

"Musha, but that was hard!"

"To be sure it was hard; but faix, when my father seen that they didn't know their own minds, he thought, anyhow, he knew his, so he ran away,--and devil a bit of him they ever cotch afther. May be ye might like to hear the story; and there's instruction in it for yez, too."

A general request to this end being preferred by the company, Mike took a shrewd look at the sergeant, to be sure that he was still sleeping, settled his coat comfortably across his knees, and began:--

Well, it's a good many years ago my father 'listed in the North Cork, just to oblige Mr. Barry, the landlord there. For,' says he, 'Phil,' says he, 'it's not a soldier ye'll be at all, but my own man, to brush my clothes and go errands, and the like o' that; and the king, long life to him! will help to pay ye for your trouble. Ye understand me?' Well, my father agreed, and Mr. Barry was as good as his word. Never a guard did my father mount, nor as much as a drill had he, nor a roll-call, nor anything at all, save and except wait on the captain, his master, just as pleasant as need be, and no inconvenience in life.

"Well, for three years this went on as I am telling, and the regiment was ordered down to Bantry, because of a report that the 'boys' was rising down there; and the second evening there was a night party patrolling with Captain Barry for six hours in the rain, and the captain, G.o.d be marciful to him! tuk could and died. More by token, they said it was drink, but my father says it wasn't: 'for' says he, 'after he tuk eight tumblers comfortable,' my father mixed the ninth, and the captain waived his hand this way, as much as to say he'd have no more. 'Is it that ye mean?' says my father; and the captain nodded. 'Musha, but it's sorry I am,' says my father, 'to see you this way; for ye must be bad entirely to leave off in the beginning of the evening.' And thrue for him, the captain was dead in the morning.

"A sorrowful day it was for my father when he died. It was the finest place in the world; little to do, plenty of divarsion, and a kind man he was,--when he was drunk. Well, then, when the captain was buried and all was over, my father hoped they'd be for letting him away, as he said, 'Sure, I'm no use in life to anybody, save the man that's gone, for his ways are all I know, and I never was a sodger.' But, upon my conscience, they had other thoughts in their heads, for they ordered him into the ranks to be drilled just like the recruits they took the day before.

"'Musha, isn't this hard?' said my father. 'Here I am, an ould vitrin that ought to be discharged on a pension with two-and-sixpence a day, obliged to go capering about the barrack-yard, practising the goose-step, or some other nonsense not becoming my age nor my habits.' But so it was. Well, this went on for some time, and sure, if they were hard on my father, hadn't he his revenge; for he nigh broke their hearts with his stupidity.

Oh, nothing in life could equal him! Devil a thing, no matter how easy, he could learn at all; and so far from caring for being in confinement, it was that he liked best. Every sergeant in the regiment had a trial of him, but all to no good; and he seemed striving so hard to learn all the while that they were loath to punish him, the ould rogue!

"This was going on for some time, when, one day, news came in that a body of the rebels, as they called them, was coming down from the Gap of Mulnavick to storm the town and burn all before them. The whole regiment was of coorse under arms, and great preparations was made for a battle.

Meanwhile patrols were ordered to scour the roads, and sentries posted at every turn of the way and every rising ground to give warning when the boys came in sight; and my father was placed at the Bridge of Drumsnag, in the wildest and bleakest part of the whole country, with nothing but furze mountains on every side, and a straight road going over the top of them.

"'This is pleasant,' says my father, as soon as they left him there alone by himself, with no human creature to speak to, nor a whiskey-shop within ten miles of him; 'cowld comfort,' says he, 'on a winter's day; and faix, but I have a mind to give ye the slip.'

"Well, he put his gun down on the bridge, and he lit his pipe, and he sat down under an ould tree and began to ruminate upon his affairs.

"'Oh, then, it's wis.h.i.+ng it well I am,' says he, 'for sodgering; and bad luck to the hammer that struck the s.h.i.+lling that 'listed me, that's all,'

for he was mighty low in his heart.

"Just then a noise came rattling down near him. He listened, and before he could get on his legs, down comes' the general, ould Cohoon, with an orderly after him.

"'Who goes there?' says my father.

"'The round,' says the general, looking about all the time to see where was the sentry, for my father was snug under the tree.

"'What round?' says my father.

"'The grand round,' says the general, more puzzled than afore.

"'Pa.s.s on, grand round, and G.o.d save you kindly!' says my father, putting his pipe in his mouth again, for he thought all was over.

"'D--n your soul, where are you?' says the general, for sorrow bit of my father could he see yet.