The Poacher Part 6

"Nevertheless, here it is in four notes--one, two, three, four: four times five are twenty; there's arithmetic for you, and your money to boot, and many thanks in the bargain, by way of interest. And now, O'Donahue, where have you been, what have you been doing, what are you doing, and what do you intend to do? That's what I call a comprehensive inquiry, and a very close one too."

"I have been in London a month, I have done nothing, I am doing nothing, and I don't know what I intend to do. You may take that for a comprehensive answer."

"I'll tell you all about myself without your asking. I have been in London for nearly two years, one of which I spent in courting, and the other in matrimony."

"Why, you don't mean to say that you are married, McShane; if so, as you've been married a year, you can tell me, am I to give you joy?"

"Why, yes, I believe you may; there's nothing so stupid, O'Donahue, as domestic happiness, that's a fact; but, altogether, I have been so large a portion of my life doubtful where I was to get a dinner, that I think that on the whole I have made a very good choice."

"And may I inquire who is the party to whom Major McShane has condescended to sacrifice his handsome person?"

"Is it handsome you mane? As the ugly lady said to the looking-gla.s.s, I beg no reflections--you wish to know who she is; well, then, you must be content to listen to all my adventures from the time we parted, for she is at the end of them, and I can't read backwards."

"I am at your service, so begin as you please."

"Let me see, O'Donahue, where was it that we parted?"

"If I recollect, it was at the landing made at ---, where you were reported killed."

"Very true, but that, I gave my honour, was all a lie; it was fat Sergeant Murphy that was killed, instead of me. He was a terrible fellow, that Sergeant Murphy; he got himself killed on purpose, because he never could have pa.s.sed his accounts; well, he fought like a devil, so peace be with him. I was knocked down, as you know, with a bullet in my thigh, and as I could not stand, I sat upon the carca.s.s of Sergeant Murphy, bound up my leg, and meditated on sublunary affairs. I thought what a great rogue he was, that Sergeant Murphy, and how he'd gone out of the world without absolution; and then I thought it very likely that he might have some money about him, and how much better it would be that I should have it to comfort me in prison than any rascally Frenchman, so I put my hand in his pocket and borrowed his purse, which was, taking the difference of size, as well lined as himself. Well, as you had all retreated and left me to be taken prisoner, I waited very patiently till they should come and carry me to the hospital, or wherever else they pleased. They were not long coming for me: one fellow would have pa.s.sed his bayonet through me, but I had my pistol c.o.c.ked, so he thought it advisable to take me prisoner. I was taken into the town, not to the hospital or the prison, but quartered at the house of an old lady of high rank and plenty of money. Well, the surgeon came and very politely told me that he must cut off my leg, and I very politely told him to go to the devil; and the old lady came in and took my part, when she saw what a handsome leg it was, and sent for another doctor at her own expense, who promised to set me on my pins in less than a month. Well, the old lady fell in love with me; and although she was not quite the vision of youthful fancy, as the saying is, for she had only one tooth in her head, and that stuck out half an inch beyond her upper lip, still she had other charms for a poor devil like me; so I made up my mind to marry her, for she made cruel love to me as I laid in bed, and before I was fairly out of bed the thing was settled, and a week afterwards the day was fixed; but her relatives got wind of it, for, like an old fool, she could not help blabbing, and so one day there came a file of soldiers, with a corporal at their head, informing me that I was now quite well, and therefore, if it was all the same to me, I must go to prison. This was anything but agreeable, and contrary to rule. As an officer, I was ent.i.tled to my parole; and so I wrote to the commanding officer, who sent for me, and then he told me I had my choice, to give up the old lady, whose friends were powerful, and would not permit her to make a fool of herself (a personal remark, by the bye, which it was unhandsome to make to a gentleman in my circ.u.mstances), or to be refused parole, and remain in prison, and that he would give me an hour to decide; then he made me a very low bow, and left me. I was twisting the affair over in my mind, one moment thinking of her purse and carriage and doubloons, and another of that awful long tooth of hers, when one of her relatives came in and said he had a proposal to make, which was, that I should be released and sent to Gibraltar, without any conditions, with a handsome sum of money to pay my expenses, if I would promise to give up the old lady now and for ever. That suited my book; I took the money, took my leave, and a small vessel took me to Gibraltar; so after all, you see, O'Donahue, the thing did not turn out so bad. I lost only an old woman with a long tooth, and I gained my liberty."

"No; you got out of that affair with credit."

"And with money, which is quite as good; so when I returned and proved myself alive, I was reinstated, and had all my arrears paid up. What with Sergeant Murphy's purse, and the foreign subsidy, and my arrears, I was quite flush; so I resolved to be circ.u.mspect, and make hay while the sun shone: notwithstanding which, I was as nearly trapped by a cunning devil of a widow. Two days more, and I should have made a pretty kettle of fish of it."

"What, at your age, McShane?"

"Ah, bother! but she was a knowing one--a widow on a first floor, good-looking, buxom, a fine armful, and about thirty--met her at a party--pointed out to me as without enc.u.mbrance, and well off--made up to her, escorted her home--begged permission to call, was graciously received--talked of her departed husband, thought me like him-- everything so comfortable--plenty of plate--good furniture--followed her up--received notes by a little boy in sky-blue and silver sugar-loaf b.u.t.tons--sent me all her messages--one day in the week to her banker's to cash a check. Would you believe the cunning of the creature? She used to draw out 25 pounds every week, sending me for the money, and, as I found out afterwards, paid it in again in fifties every fortnight, and she only had 50 pounds in all. Wasn't I regularly humbugged? Made proposals--was accepted--all settled, and left off talking about her departed. One day, and only two days before the wedding, found the street-door open, and heard a noise between her and her landlady of the top of the stairs, so I waited at the bottom. The landlady was insisting upon her rent, and having all her plate back again--my charming widow entreating for a little delay, as she was to be married-- landlady came downstairs, red as a turkey-c.o.c.k, so I very politely begged her to walk into the parlour, and I put a few questions, when I discovered that my intended was a widow with a pension of 80 pounds a-year, and had six children, sent out of the way until she could find another protector, which I resolved, at all events, should not be Major McShane; so I walked out of the door, and have never seen her since."

"By the head of Saint Patrick, but that was an escape!"

"Yes, indeed, the she-devil with six children, and 80 pounds a year; it's a wicked world this, O'Donahue. Well, I kept clear of such cunning articles, and only looked after youth and innocence in the city. At last I discovered the only daughter of a German sugar-baker in the Minories, a young thing about seventeen, but very little for her age.

She went to a dancing-school, and I contrived, by bribing the maid, to carry on the affair most successfully, and she agreed to run away with me: everything was ready, the postchaise was at the corner of the street, she came with her bundle in her hand. I thrust it into the chaise, and was just tossing her in after it, when she cried out that she had forgotten something, and must go back for it; and away she went, slipping through my fingers. Well, I waited most impatiently for her appearance, and at last saw her coming; and what d'ye think she'd gone back for? By the powers, for _her doll_, which she held in her hand!

And just as she came to the chaise, who should come round the corner but her father, who had walked from Mincing Lane. He caught my mincing Miss by the arm, with her doll and her bundle, and bundled her home, leaving me and the postchaise, looking like two fools. I never could see her again, or her confounded doll either."

"You have been out of luck, McShane."

"I'm not sure of that, as the affair has ended. Now comes another adventure, in which I turned the tables, anyhow. I fell in with a very pretty girl, the daughter of a lawyer in Chancery Lane, who was said to have, and (I paid a s.h.i.+lling at Doctors' Commons, and read the will) it was true enough, an independent fortune from her grandmother. She was always laughing full of mischief and practical jokes. She pretended to be pleased, the hussey, with my addresses, and at last she consented, as I thought, to run away with me. I imagined that I had clinched the business at last, when one dark night I handed her into a chaise, wrapped up in a cloak, and crying. However, I got her in, and away we went as if the devil was behind us. I coaxed her and soothed her, and promised to make her happy; but she still kept her handkerchief up to her eyes, and would not permit me a chaste salute--even pushed me away when I would put my arm round her waist; all which I ascribed to the extra shame and modesty which a woman feels when she is doing wrong. At last, when about fifteen miles from town, there was a burst of laughter, and 'I think we have gone far enough, Major McShane.' By all the saints in the calendar, it was her scamp of a brother that had taken her place.

'My young gentleman,' said I, 'I think you have not only gone far enough, but, as I shall prove to you, perhaps a little too far,' for I was in no fool of a pa.s.sion. So I set to, beat him to a mummy, broke his nose, blackened both his eyes, and knocked half his teeth down his throat; and when he was half dead, I opened the chaise door as it whirled along, and kicked him out to take his chance of the wheels, or any other wheels which the wheel of fortune might turn up for him. So he went home and told his sister what a capital joke it was, I've no doubt. I'll be bound the young gentleman has never run away with an Irishman since that: however, I never heard any more about him, or his lovely sister."

"Now, then, for the wind up, McShane."

"Courting's very expensive, especially when you order postchaises for nothing at all, and I was very nearly at the end of my rhino; so I said to myself, 'McShane, you must retrench.' And I did so; instead of dining at the coffee-house, I determined to go to an eating-house, and walked into one in Holborn, where I sat down to a plate of good beef and potatoes, and a large lump of plum-pudding, paid 1 s.h.i.+lling and 6 pence, and never was better pleased in my life; so I went there again, and became a regular customer; and the girls who waited laughed with me, and the lady who kept the house was very gracious. Now, the lady was good-looking, but she was rather too fat; there was an amiable look about her, even when she was carving beef; and by degrees we became intimate, and I found her a very worthy creature, and as simple-minded as a child, although she could look sharp after her customers. It was, and is now, a most thriving establishment--nearly two hundred people dine there every day. I don't know how it was, but I suppose I first fell in love with her beef; and then with her fair self; and finding myself well received at all times, I one day, as she was carving a beefsteak-pie which might have tempted a king for its fragrance, put the question to her, as to how she would like to marry again. She blushed, and fixed her eyes down upon the hole she had made in the pie, and then I observed that if there was a hole in my side as big as there was in the pie before her, she would see her image in my heart. This pretty simile did the business for me, and in a month we were married; and I never shall want a dinner as long as I live, either for myself or friend. I will put you on the free list, O'Donahue, if you can condescend to a cook's shop: and I can a.s.sure you that I think I have done a very wise thing, for I don't want to present any wife at Court, and I have a very comfortable home."

"You have done a wise thing, in my opinion, McShane--you have a wife who makes money, instead of one who spends it."

"And, moreover, I have found my bargain better that I antic.i.p.ated, which is seldom the case in this world of treachery and deceit. She has plenty of money, and is putting by more every year."

"Which you have the control of, at your disposition, do you mean to say?"

"Why, yes, I may say that now; but, O'Donahue, that is owing to my circ.u.mspection and delicacy. At first starting, I determined that she should not think that it was only her money that I wanted; so, after we were married, I continued to find myself, which, paying nothing for board and lodging and was.h.i.+ng, I could easily do upon my half-pay; and I have done so ever since, until just now."

"I had not been married a week before I saw that she expected I would make inquiries into the state of her finances, but I would not. At last, finding that I would not enter into the business, she did, and told me that she had 17,000 pounds Consols laid by, and that the business was worth 1,000 pounds per annum (you may fish at Cheltenham a long while, O'Donahue, before you get such a haul as that). So I told her I was very glad she was well off, and then I pretended to go fast asleep, as I never interfered with her, and never asked for money. At last she didn't like it, and offered it to me; but I told her I had enough, and did not want it; since which she has been quite annoyed at my not spending money; and when I told her this morning that there was a brother officer of mine arrived in town, to whom I had owed some money for a long while, she insisted upon my taking money to pay it, put a pile of bank-notes in my had, and was quite mortified when she found I only wanted 20 pounds. Now you see, O'Donahue, I have done this from principle. She earns the money, and therefore she shall have the control of it as long as we are good friends; and upon my honour, I really think I love her better than I ever thought I could love any woman in the world for she has the temper, the kindness, and the charity of an angel, although not precisely the figure; but one can't have everything in this world; and so now you have the whole of my story, and what do you think of it?"

"You must present me to your wife, McShane."

"That I will with pleasure. She's like her rounds of beef--it's cut and come again; but her heart is a beauty, and so is her beefsteak-pie--when you taste it."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

IN WHICH AN INTERCHANGE AND CONFIDENCE TAKE PLACE.

"And now, O'Donahue," said McShane, "if you are not yet tired of my company, I should like to hear what you have been doing since we parted: be quite as explicit, but not quite so long-winded, as myself; for I fear that I tired you."

"I will be quite as explicit, my good fellow; but I have no such marvellous adventures to relate, and not such a fortunate wind up. I have been to Bath, to Cheltenham, to Harrogate, to Brighton, and everywhere else where people meet, and people are met with, who would not meet or be met with elsewhere. I have seen many nice girls; but the nice girls were, like myself, almost penniless; and I have seen many ill-favoured, who had money: the first I could only afford to look at-- the latter I have had some dealings with. I have been refused by one or two, and I might have married seven or eight; but, somehow or other, when it came near the point, the vision of a certain angel, now in heaven, has risen before me, and I have not had the heart or the heartlessness to proceed. Indeed, I may safely say that I have seen but one person since we parted who ever made the least impression on me, or whom I could fancy in any degree to replace her whom I have lost, and she, I fear, is lost also; so we may as well say no more about it. I have determined to marry for money, as you well know; but it appears to me as if there was something which invariably prevents the step being taken; and, upon my honour, fortune seems so inclined to balk me in my wishes, that I begin to snap my fingers at her, and am becoming quite indifferent. I suffer now under the evil of poverty; but it is impossible to say what other evils may be in store if I were to change my condition, as the ladies say. Come what will, in one thing I am determined--that if I marry a girl for money, I will treat her well, and not let her find it out; and as that may add to the difficulty of a man's position when he is not in love with his wife, why, all I can say is, Captain O'Donahue doesn't go cheap--that's decided."

"You're right, my jewel; there's not such a broth of a boy to be picked up every day in the week. Widows might bid for you, for without flattery, I think you a moral of a man, and an honour to Old Ireland.

But O'Donahue, begging your pardon, if it's not a secret, who may have been this lady who appears to have bothered your brains not a little, since she could you forget somebody else?"

"I met her at the Lakes of c.u.mberland, and being acquainted with some of the party, was invited to join them. I was ten days in her company at Windermere, Ambleside, Derwent.w.a.ter, and other places. She was a foreigner, and t.i.tled."

"Murder and Iris.h.!.+ you don't say so?"

"Yes; and moreover, as I was informed by those who were with her, has large property in Poland. She was, in fact, everything that I could desire--handsome, witty, speaking English and several other languages, and about two or three and twenty years old."

"And her name, if it's no offence to ask it?"

"Princess Czartorinski."

"And a princess in the bargain? And did you really pretend to make love to a princess?"

"Am not I an Irishman, McShane? and is a princess anything but a woman, after all? By the powers! I'd make love to, and run away with, the Pope himself; if he were made of the same materials as Pope Joan is said to have been."

"Then, upon my faith, O'Donahue, I believe you--so now go on."

"I not only made love to her, but in making love to her, I got most terribly singed myself; and I felt, before I quitted her, that if I had ten thousand a-year, and she was as poor as my dear Judith was, that she should have taken her place--that's the truth. I thought that I never could love again, and that my heart was as flinty as a p.a.w.nbroker's; but I found out my mistake when it was too late."

"And did she return you the compliment?"

"That I was not indifferent to her, I may without vanity believe. I had a five minutes alone with her just before we parted, and I took that opportunity of saying how much pain it was to part with her, and for once I told the truth, for I was almost choking when I said it. I'm convinced that there was sincerity in my face, and that she saw that it was there; so she replied, 'If what you say is true, we shall meet at Saint Petersburg next winter; good-bye, I shall expect you.'"

"Well, that was as much as to say, come, at all events."

"It was; I stammered out my determination so to do, if possible; but I felt at the time that my finances rendered it impossible--so there was an end of that affair. By my hopes of salvation, I'd not only go to Saint Petersburg, but round the whole world, and to the north pole afterwards, if I had the means only to see her once more."

"You're in a bad way, O'Donahue; your heart's gone and your money too.

Upon my soul, I pity you; but it's always the case in this world. When I was a boy, the best and ripest fruit was always on the top of the wall, and out of my reach. Shall I call to-morrow, and then, if you please, I'll introduce you to Mrs McShane?"