The House by the Churchyard
The House by the Churchyard A PROLOGUE.CHAPTER I.CHAPTER II.CHAPTER III.CHAPTER IV.CHAPTER V.CHAPTER VI.CHAPTER VII.CHAPTER VIII.CHAPTER IX.CHAPTER X.CHAPTER XI.CHAPTER XII.CHAPTER XIII.CHAPTER XIV.CHAPTER XV.CHAPTER XVI.CHAPTER XVII.CHAPTER XVIII.CHAPTER XIX.CHAPTER XX.CHAPTER XXI.CHAPTER XXII.CHAPTER XXIII.CHAPTER XXIV.FOOTNOTE:CHAPTER XXV.CHAPTER XXVI.CHAPTER XXVII.CHAPTER XXVIII.CHAPTER XXIX.CHAPTER XXX.CHAPTER XXXI.CHAPTER XXXII.CHAPTER XXXIII.CHAPTER XXXIV.CHAPTER XXXV.CHAPTER XXXVI.CHAPTER XXXVII.CHAPTER XXXVIII.CHAPTER XXXIX.CHAPTER XL.CHAPTER XLI.CHAPTER XLII.CHAPTER XLIII.CHAPTER XLIV.CHAPTER XLV.CHAPTER XLVI.CHAPTER XLVII.CHAPTER XLVIII.CHAPTER XLIX.CHAPTER L.CHAPTER LI.CHAPTER LII.CHAPTER LIII.CHAPTER LIV.CHAPTER LV.CHAPTER LVI.CHAPTER LVII.CHAPTER LVIII.CHAPTER LIX.CHAPTER LX.CHAPTER LXI.CHAPTER LXII.CHAPTER LXIII.CHAPTER LXIV.CHAPTER LXV.CHAPTER LXVI.CHAPTER LXVII.CHAPTER LXVIII.CHAPTER LXIX.CHAPTER LXX.CHAPTER LXXI.CHAPTER LXXII.CHAPTER LXXIII.CHAPTER LXXIV.CHAPTER LXXV.CHAPTER LXXVI.CHAPTER LXXVII.CHAPTER LXXVIII.CHAPTER LXXIX.CHAPTER LXXX.CHAPTER LXXXI.CHAPTER LXXXII.CHAPTER LXXXIII.CHAPTER LXXXIV.CHAPTER LXXXV.CHAPTER LXXXVI.CHAPTER LXXXVII.CHAPTER LXXXVIII.CHAPTER LXXXIX.CHAPTER XC.CHAPTER XCI.CHAPTER XCII.CHAPTER XCIII.CHAPTER XCIV.CHAPTER XCV.CHAPTER XCVI.CHAPTER XCVII.CHAPTER XCVIII.CHAPTER XCIX.Copyright
The House by the Churchyard
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
A PROLOGUE.
e are going to talk, if you please, in the ensuing
chapters, of what was going on in Chapelizod about a hundred years
ago. A hundred years, to be sure, is a good while; but though
fashions have changed, some old phrases dropped out, and new ones
come in; and snuff and hair-powder, and sacques and solitaires
quite passed away—yet men and women were men and women all the
same—as elderly fellows, like your humble servant, who have seen
and talked with rearward stragglers of that generation—now all and
long marched off—can testify, if they will.In those days Chapelizod was about the gayest and prettiest
of the outpost villages in which old Dublin took a complacent
pride. The poplars which stood, in military rows, here and there,
just showed a glimpse of formality among the orchards and old
timber that lined the banks of the river and the valley of the
Liffey, with a lively sort of richness. The broad old street looked
hospitable and merry, with steep roofs and many coloured
hall-doors. The jolly old inn, just beyond the turnpike at the
sweep of the road, leading over the buttressed bridge by the mill,
was first to welcome the excursionist from Dublin, under the sign
of the Phœnix. There, in the grand wainscoted back-parlour, with
'the great and good King William,' in his robe, garter, periwig,
and sceptre presiding in the panel over the chimneypiece, and
confronting the large projecting window, through which the river,
and the daffodils, and the summer foliage looked so bright and
quiet, the Aldermen of Skinner's Alley—a club of the 'true blue'
dye, as old as the Jacobite wars of the previous century—the
corporation of shoemakers, or of tailors, or the freemasons, or the
musical clubs, loved to dine at the stately hour of five, and
deliver their jokes, sentiments, songs, and wisdom, on a pleasant
summer's evening. Alas! the inn is as clean gone as the guests—a
dream of the shadow of smoke.Lately, too, came down the old 'Salmon House'—so called from
the blazonry of that noble fish upon its painted sign-board—at the
other end of the town, that, with a couple more, wheeled out at
right angles from the line of the broad street, and directly
confronting the passenger from Dublin, gave to it something of the
character of a square, and just left room for the high road and
Martin's Row to slip between its flank and the orchard that
overtopped the river wall. Well! it is gone. I blame nobody. I
suppose it was quite rotten, and that the rats would soon have
thrown up their lease of it; and that it was taken down, in short,
chiefly, as one of the players said of 'Old Drury,' to prevent the
inconvenience of its coming down of itself. Still a peevish but
harmless old fellow—who hates change, and would wish things to stay
as they were just a little, till his own great change comes; who
haunts the places where his childhood was passed, and reverences
the homeliest relics of by-gone generations—may be allowed to
grumble a little at the impertinences of improving proprietors with
a taste for accurate parallelograms and pale new
brick.Then there was the village church, with its tower dark and
rustling from base to summit, with thick piled, bowering ivy. The
royal arms cut in bold relief in the broad stone over the
porch—where, pray, is that stone now, the memento of its old
viceregal dignity? Where is the elevated pew, where many a lord
lieutenant, in point, and gold lace, and thunder-cloud periwig,
sate in awful isolation, and listened to orthodox and loyal
sermons, and took French rappee; whence too, he stepped forth
between the files of the guard of honour of the Royal Irish
Artillery from the barrack over the way, in their courtly uniform,
white, scarlet, and blue, cocked hats, and cues, and ruffles,
presenting arms—into his emblazoned coach and six, with hanging
footmen, as wonderful as Cinderella's, and out-riders out-blazing
the liveries of the troops, and rolling grandly away in sunshine
and dust.The 'Ecclesiastical Commissioners' have done their office
here. The tower, indeed, remains, with half its antique growth of
ivy gone; but the body of the church is new, and I, and perhaps an
elderly fellow or two more, miss the old-fashioned square pews,
distributed by a traditional tenure among the families and
dignitaries of the town and vicinage (who are they now?), and sigh
for the queer, old, clumsy reading-desk and pulpit, grown dearer
from the long and hopeless separation; and wonder where the tables
of the Ten Commandments, in long gold letters of Queen Anne's date,
upon a vivid blue ground, arched above, and flanking the
communion-table, with its tall thin rails, and fifty other things
that appeared to me in my nonage, as stable as the earth, and as
sacred as the heavens, are gone to.As for the barrack of the Royal Irish Artillery, the great
gate leading into the parade ground, by the river side, and all
that, I believe the earth, or rather that grim giant factory, which
is now the grand feature and centre of Chapelizod, throbbing all
over with steam, and whizzing with wheels, and vomiting pitchy
smoke, has swallowed them up.A line of houses fronting this—old familiar faces—still look
blank and regretfully forth, through their glassy eyes, upon the
changed scene. How different the company they kept some ninety or a
hundred years ago!Where is the mill, too, standing fast by the bridge, the
manorial appendage of the town, which I loved in my boyhood for its
gaunt and crazy aspect and dim interior, whence the clapper kept
time mysteriously to the drone of the mill-sluice? I think it is
gone. Surelythatconfounded
thing can't be my venerable old friend in masquerade!But I can't expect you, my reader—polite and patient as you
manifestly are—to potter about with me, all the summer day, through
this melancholy and mangled old town, with a canopy of factory soot
between your head and the pleasant sky. One glance, however, before
you go, you will vouchsafe at the village tree—that stalworth elm.
It has not grown an inch these hundred years. It does not look a
day older than it did fifty years ago,Ican tell you. There he stands the
same; and yet a stranger in the place of his birth, in a new order
of things, joyless, busy, transformed Chapelizod, listening, as it
seems to me, always to the unchanged song and prattle of the river,
with his reveries and affections far away among by-gone times and a
buried race. Thou hast a story, too, to tell, thou slighted and
solitary sage, if only the winds would steal it musically forth,
like the secret of Mildas from the moaning reeds.The palmy days of Chapelizod were just about a hundred years
ago, and those days—though I am jealous of their pleasant and
kindly fame, and specially for the preservation of the few
memorials they have left behind, were yet, I may say, in your ear,
with all their colour and adventure—perhaps, on the whole, more
pleasant to read about, and dream of, than they were to live in.
Still their violence, follies, and hospitalities, softened by
distance, and illuminated with a sort of barbaric splendour, have
long presented to my fancy the glowing and ever-shifting
combinations upon which, as on the red embers, in a winter's
gloaming, I love to gaze, propping my white head upon my hand, in a
lazy luxury of reverie, from my own arm-chair, while they drop,
ever and anon, into new shapes, and silently tell their 'winter's
tales.'When your humble servant, Charles de Cresseron, the compiler
of this narrative, was a boy some fourteen years old—how long ago
precisely that was, is nothing to the purpose, 'tis enough to say
he remembers what he then saw and heard a good deal better than
what happened a week ago—it came to pass that he was spending a
pleasant week of his holidays with his benign uncle and godfather,
the curate of Chapelizod. On the second day of his, or
rathermysojourn (I take leave
to return to the first person), there was a notable funeral of an
old lady. Her name was Darby, and her journey to her last home was
very considerable, being made in a hearse, by easy stages, from her
house of Lisnabane, in the county of Sligo, to the church-yard of
Chapelizod. There was a great flat stone over that small parcel of
the rector's freehold, which the family held by a tenure, not of
lives, but of deaths, renewable for ever. So that my uncle, who was
a man of an anxious temperament, had little trouble in satisfying
himself of the meerings and identity of this narrow tenement, to
which Lemuel Mattocks, the sexton, led him as straight and
confidently as he could have done to the
communion-table.My uncle, therefore, fiated the sexton's presentment, and the
work commenced forthwith. I don't know whether all boys have the
same liking for horrors which I am conscious of having possessed—I
only know that I liked the churchyard, and deciphering tombstones,
and watching the labours of the sexton, and hearing the old world
village talk that often got up over the relics.When this particular grave was pretty nearly finished—it lay
from east to west—a lot of earth fell out at the northern side,
where an old coffin had lain, and good store of brown dust and
grimy bones, and the yellow skull itself came tumbling about the
sexton's feet. These fossils, after his wont, he lifted decently
with the point of his shovel, and pitched into a little nook beside
the great mound of mould at top.'Be the powers o' war! here's a battered head-piece for yez,'
said young Tim Moran, who had picked up the cranium, and was eyeing
it curiously, turning it round the while.'Show it here, Tim;' 'letmelook,' cried two or three neighbours, getting round as
quickly as they could.'Oh! murdher;' said one.'Oh! be the powers o' Moll Kelly!' cried
another.'Oh! bloody wars!' exclaimed a third.'That poor fellow got no chance for his life at all, at all!'
said Tim.'That was a bullet,' said one of them, putting his finger
into a clean circular aperture as large as a
half-penny.'An' look at them two cracks. Och, murther!''There's only one. Oh, I see you're right,two, begorra!''Aich o' them a wipe iv a poker.'Mattocks had climbed nimbly to the upper level, and taking
the skull in his fist, turned it about this way and that,
curiously. But though he was no chicken, his memory did not go far
enough back to throw any light upon the matter.'Could it be the Mattross that was shot in the year '90, as I
often heerd, for sthrikin' his captain?' suggested a
by-stander.'Oh! that poor fellow's buried round by the north side of the
church,' said Mattocks, still eyeing the skull. 'It could not be
Counsellor Gallagher, that was kilt in the jewel with Colonel
Ruck—he was hot in the head—bud it could not be—augh! not at
all.''Why not, Misther Mattocks?''No, nor the Mattross neither. This, ye see, is a dhry bit o'
the yard here; there's ould Darby's coffin, at the bottom, down
there, sound enough to stand on, as you see, wid a plank; an' he
was buried in the year '93. Why, look at the coffin this skull
belongs to, 'tid go into powdher between your fingers; 'tis nothin'
but tindher.''I believe you're right, Mr. Mattocks.''Phiat! to be sure. 'Tis longer undher ground by thirty
years, good, or more maybe.'Just then the slim figure of my tall mild uncle, the curate,
appeared, and his long thin legs, in black worsted stockings and
knee-breeches, stepped reverently and lightly among the graves. The
men raised their hats, and Mattocks jumped lightly into the grave
again, while my uncle returned their salute with the sad sort of
smile, a regretful kindness, which he never exceeded, in these
solemn precincts.It was his custom to care very tenderly for the bones turned
up by the sexton, and to wait with an awful solicitude until, after
the reading of the funeral service, he saw them gently replaced, as
nearly as might be, in their old bed; and discouraging all idle
curiosity or levity respecting them, with a solemn rebuke, which
all respected. Therefore it was, that so soon as he appeared the
skull was, in Hibernian phrase, 'dropt like a hot potato,' and the
grave-digger betook himself to his spade so nimbly.'Oh! Uncle Charles,' I said, taking his hand, and leading him
towards the foot of the grave; 'such a wonderful skull has come up!
It is shot through with a bullet, and cracked with a poker
besides.'''Tis thrue for him, your raverence; he was murthered twiste
over, whoever he was—rest his sowl;' and the sexton, who had nearly
completed his work, got out of the grave again, with a demure
activity, and raising the brown relic with great reverence, out of
regard for my good uncle, he turned it about slowly before the eyes
of the curate, who scrutinised it, from a little distance, with a
sort of melancholy horror.'Yes, Lemuel,' said my uncle, still holding my hand, ''twas
undoubtedly a murder; ay, indeed! He sustained two heavy blows,
beside that gunshot through the head.'''Twasn't gunshot, Sir; why the hole 'id take in a
grape-shot,' said an old fellow, just from behind my uncle, in a
pensioner's cocked hat, leggings, and long old-world red
frock-coat, speaking with a harsh reedy voice, and a grim sort of
reserved smile.I moved a little aside, with a sort of thrill, to give him
freer access to my uncle, in the hope that he might, perhaps, throw
a light upon the history of this remarkable memorial. The old
fellow had a rat-like gray eye—the other was hid under a black
patch—and there was a deep red scar across his forehead, slanting
from the patch that covered the extinguished orb. His face was
purplish, the tinge deepening towards the lumpish top of his nose,
on the side of which stood a big wart, and he carried a great
walking-cane over his shoulder, and bore, as it seemed to me, an
intimidating, but caricatured resemblance to an old portrait of
Oliver Cromwell in my Whig grandfather's parlour.'You don't think it a bullet wound, Sir?' said my uncle,
mildly, and touching his hat—for coming of a military stock
himself, he always treated an old soldier with uncommon
respect.'Why, please your raverence,' replied the man, reciprocating
his courtesy; 'Iknowit's
not.''And whatisit, then, my
good man?' interrogated the sexton, as one in authority, and
standing on his own dunghill.'The trepan,' said the fogey, in the tone in which he'd have
cried 'attention' to a raw recruit, without turning his head, and
with a scornful momentary skew-glance from his gray
eye.'And do you know whose skull that was, Sir?' asked the
curate.'Ay do I, Sir,well,'
with the same queer smile, he answered. 'Come, now, you're a
grave-digger, my fine fellow,' he continued, accosting the sexton
cynically; 'how long do you suppose that skull's been under
ground?''Long enough; but not so long,myfine fellow, as yours has been above
ground.''Well, you're right there, forIseen him buried,' and he took the skull from the sexton's
hands; 'and I'll tell you more, there was some dry eyes, too, at
his funeral—ha, ha, ha!''You were a resident in the town, then?' said my uncle, who
did not like the turn his recollections were taking.'Ay, Sir, that I was,' he replied; 'see that broken tooth,
there—I forgot 'twas there—and the minute I seen it, I remembered
it like this morning—I could swear to it—when he laughed; ay, and
that sharp corner to it—hang him,' and he twirled the loose tooth,
the last but two of all its fellows, from' its socket, and chucked
it into the grave.'And were you—you weren't in the army,then?' enquired the curate, who could
not understand the sort of scoffing dislike he seemed to bear
it.'Be my faith I wasso,
Sir—the Royal Irish Artillery,' replied he, promptly.'And in what capacity?' pursued his reverence.'Drummer,' answered the mulberry-faced veteran.'Ho!—Drummer? That's a good time ago, I dare say,' said my
uncle, looking on him reflectively.'Well, so it is, not far off fifty years,' answered he. 'He
was a hard-headed codger, he was; but you see the sprig of
shillelagh was too hard for him—ha, ha, ha!' and he gave the skull
a smart knock with his walking-cane, as he grinned at it and wagged
his head.'Gently, gently, my good man,' said the curate, placing his
hand hastily upon his arm, for the knock was harder than was needed
for the purpose of demonstration.'You see, Sir, at that time, our Colonel-in-Chief was my Lord
Blackwater,' continued the old soldier, 'not that we often seen
him, for he lived in France mostly; the Colonel-en-Second was
General Chattesworth, and Colonel Stafford was Lieutenant-Colonel,
and under him Major O'Neill; Captains, four—Cluffe, Devereux,
Barton, and Burgh: First Lieutenants—Puddock, Delany, Sackville,
and Armstrong; Second Lieutenants—Salt; Barber, Lillyman, and
Pringle; Lieutenant Fireworkers—O'Flaherty—''I beg your pardon,' interposed my uncle, 'Fireworkers, did you
say?''Yes, Sir.''And what, pray, does a LieutenantFireworkermean?''Why, law bless you, Sir! a Fireworker! 'twas his business to
see that the men loaded, sarved, laid, and fired the gun all right.
But that doesn't signify; you see this old skull, Sir: well, 'twas
a nine days' wonder, and the queerest business you ever heerd tell
of. Why, Sir, the women was frightened out of their senses, an' the
men puzzled out o' their wits—they wor—ha, ha, ha! an' I can tell
you all about it—a mighty black and bloody business it
was—''I—I beg your pardon, Sir: but I think—yes—the funeral has
arrived; and for the present, I must bid you
good-morning.'And so my uncle hurried to the church, where he assumed his
gown, and the solemn rite proceeded.When all was over, my uncle, after his wont, waited until he
had seen the disturbed remains re-deposited decently in their
place; and then, having disrobed, I saw him look with some interest
about the church-yard, and I knew 'twas in quest of the old
soldier.'I saw him go away during the funeral,' I said.'Ay, the old pensioner,' said my uncle, peering about in
quest of him.And we walked through the town, and over the bridge, and we
saw nothing of his cocked hat and red single-breasted frock, and
returned rather disappointed to tea.I ran into the back room which commanded the church-yard in
the hope of seeing the old fellow once more, with his cane
shouldered, grinning among the tombstones in the evening sun. But
there was no sign of him, or indeed of anyone else there. So I
returned, just as my uncle, having made the tea, shut down the lid
of his silver tea-pot with a little smack; and with a kind but
absent smile upon me, he took his book, sat down and crossed one of
his thin legs over the other, and waited pleasantly until the
delightful infusion should be ready for our lips, reading his old
volume, and with his disengaged hand gently stroking his long
shin-bone.In the meantime, I, who thirsted more for that tale of terror
which the old soldier had all but begun, of which in that strangely
battered skull I had only an hour ago seen face to face so grizzly
a memento, and of which in all human probability I never was to
hear more, looked out dejectedly from the window, when, whom should
I behold marching up the street, at slow time, towards the Salmon
House, but the identical old soldier, cocked-hat, copper nose,
great red single-breasted coat with its prodigious wide
button-holes, leggings, cane, and all, just under the village
tree.'Here he is, oh! Uncle Charles, here he comes,' I
cried.'Eh, the soldier, is he?' said my uncle, tripping in the
carpet in his eagerness, and all but breaking the
window.'So it is, indeed; run down, my boy, and beg him to come
up.'But by the time I had reached the street, which you may be
sure was not very long, I found my uncle had got the window up and
was himself inviting the old boy, who having brought his left
shoulder forward, thanked the curate, saluting soldier-fashion,
with his hand to his hat, palm foremost. I've observed, indeed,
than those grim old campaigners who have seen the world, make it a
principle to accept anything in the shape of a treat. If it's bad,
why, it costs them nothing; and if good, so much the
better.So up he marched, and into the room with soldierly
self-possession, and being offered tea, preferred punch, and the
ingredients were soon on the little round table by the fire, which,
the evening being sharp, was pleasant; and the old fellow being
seated, he brewed his nectar, to his heart's content; and as we
sipped our tea in pleased attention, he, after his own fashion,
commenced the story, to which I listened with an interest which I
confess has never subsided.Many years after, as will sometimes happen, a flood of light
was unexpectedly poured over the details of his narrative; on my
coming into possession of the diary, curiously minute, and the
voluminous correspondence of Rebecca, sister to General
Chattesworth, with whose family I had the honour to be connected.
And this journal, to me, with my queer cat-like affection for this
old village, a perfect treasure—and the interminablebundlesof letters, sorted and arranged
so neatly, with little abstracts of their contents in red ink, in
her own firm thin hand upon the covers, from all and to all manner
of persons—for the industrious lady made fair copies of all the
letters she wrote—formed for many years my occasional, and always
pleasant winter night's reading.I wish I could infuse their spirit into what I am going to
tell, and above all that I could inspire my readers with ever so
little of the peculiar interest with which the old town has always
been tinted and saddened to my eye. My boyish imagination, perhaps,
kindled all the more at the story, by reason of it being a good
deal connected with the identical old house in which we three—my
dear uncle, my idle self, and the queer old soldier—were then
sitting. But wishes are as vain as regrets; so I'll just do my
best, bespeaking your attention, and submissively abiding your
judgment.
CHAPTER I.
THE RECTOR'S NIGHT-WALK TO HIS
CHURCH.D. 1767—in the beginning of the month of May—I mention
it because, as I said, I write from memoranda, an awfully dark
night came down on Chapelizod and all the country
round.I believe there was no moon, and the stars had been quite put
out under the wet 'blanket of the night,' which impenetrable
muffler overspread the sky with a funereal darkness.There was a little of that sheet-lightning early in the
evening, which betokens sultry weather. The clouds, column after
column, came up sullenly over the Dublin mountains, rolling
themselves from one horizon to the other into one black dome of
vapour, their slow but steady motion contrasting with the awful
stillness of the air. There was a weight in the atmosphere, and a
sort of undefined menace brooding over the little town, as if
unseen crime or danger—some mystery of iniquity—was stealing into
the heart of it, and the disapproving heavens scowled a melancholy
warning.That morning old Sally, the rector's housekeeper, was
disquieted. She had dreamed of making the great four-post, state
bed, with the dark green damask curtains—a dream that betokened
some coming trouble—it might, to be sure, be ever so small—(it had
once come with no worse result than Dr. Walsingham's dropping his
purse, containing something under a guinea in silver, over the side
of the ferry boat)—but again it might be tremendous. The omen hung
over them doubtful.A large square letter, with a great round seal, as big as a
crown piece, addressed to the Rev. Hugh Walsingham, Doctor of
Divinity, at his house, by the bridge, in Chapelizod, had reached
him in the morning, and plainly troubled him. He kept the messenger
a good hour awaiting his answer; and, just at two o'clock, the same
messenger returned with a second letter—but this time a note
sufficed for reply. ''Twill seem ungracious,' said the doctor,
knitting his brows over his closed folio in the study; 'but I
cannot choose but walk clear in my calling before the Lord. How can
I honestly pronounce hope, when in my mind there is nothing
butfear—let another do it if
he see his way—I do enough in being present, as 'tis right I
should.'It was, indeed, a remarkably dark night—a rush and downpour
of rain! The doctor stood just under the porch of the stout brick
house—of King William's date, which was then the residence of the
worthy rector of Chapelizod—with his great surtout and cape on—his
leggings buttoned up—and his capacious leather 'overalls' pulled up
and strapped over these—and his broad-leafed hat tied down over his
wig and ears with a mighty silk kerchief. I dare say he looked
absurd enough—but it was the women's doing—who always, upon
emergencies, took the doctor's wardrobe in hand. Old Sally, with
her kind, mild, grave face, and gray locks, stood modestly behind
in the hall; and pretty Lilias, his only child, gave him her
parting kiss, and her last grand charge about his shoes and other
exterior toggery, in the porch; and he patted her cheek with a
little fond laugh, taking old John Tracy's, the butler's, arm. John
carried a handsome horn-lantern, which flashed now on a roadside
bush—now on the discoloured battlements of the bridge—and now on a
streaming window. They stepped out—there were no umbrellas in those
days—splashing among the wide and widening pools; while Sally and
Lilias stood in the porch, holding candles for full five minutes
after the doctor and his 'Jack-o'-the-lantern,' as he called honest
John, whose arm and candle always befriended him in his night
excursions, had got round the corner.Through the back bow-window of the Phœnix, there pealed
forth—faint in the distance and rain—a solemn royal ditty, piped by
the tuneful Aldermen of Skinner's Alley, and neither unmusical nor
somehow uncongenial with the darkness, and the melancholy object of
the doctor's walk, the chant being rather monastic, wild, and
dirge-like. It was a quarter past ten, and no other sound of life
or human neighbourhood was stirring. If secrecy were an object, it
was well secured by the sable sky, and the steady torrent which
rolled down with electric weight and perpendicularity, making all
nature resound with one long hush—sh—sh—sh—sh—deluging the broad
street, and turning the channels and gutters into mimic
mill-streams which snorted and hurtled headlong through their
uneven beds, and round the corners towards the turbid Liffey,
which, battered all over with rain, muddy, and sullen, reeled its
way towards the sea, rolling up to the heavens an aspect black as
their own.As they passed by the Phœnix (a little rivulet, by-the-bye,
was spouting down from the corner of the sign; and indeed the night
was such as might well have caused that suicidal fowl to abandon
all thoughts of self-incremation, and submit to an unprecedented
death by drowning), there was no idle officer, or lounging waiter
upon the threshold. Military and civilians were all snug in their
quarters that night; and the inn, except for the 'Aldermen' in the
back parlour, was doing no business. The door was nearly closed,
and only let out a tall, narrow slice of candle-light upon the lake
of mud, over every inch of which the rain was
drumming.The doctor's lantern glided by—and then across the street—and
so leisurely along the foot-way, by the range of lightless hall
doors towards the Salmon House, also dark; and so, sharp round the
corner, and up to the church-yard gate, which stood a little open,
as also the church door beyond, as was evidenced by the feeble glow
of a lantern from within.I dare say old Bob Martin, the sexton, and grave Mr. Irons,
the clerk, were reassured when they heard the cheery voice of the
rector hailing them by name. There were now three candles in
church; but the edifice looked unpleasantly dim, and went off at
the far end into total darkness. Zekiel Irons was a lean, reserved
fellow, with a black wig and blue chin, and something shy and
sinister in his phiz. I don't think he had entertained honest Bob
with much conversation from those thin lips of his during their
grizzlytête-à-têteamong the
black windows and the mural tablets that overhung the
aisle.But the rector had lots to say—though deliberately and
gravely, still the voice was genial and inspiring—and exorcised the
shadows that had been gathering stealthily around the lesser Church
functionaries. Mrs. Irons's tooth, he learned, was still bad; but
she was no longer troubled with 'that sour humour in her stomach.'
There were sour humours, alas! still remaining—enough, and to
spare, as the clerk knew to his cost. Bob Martin thanked his
reverence; the cold rheumatism in his hip was better.' Irons, the
clerk, replied, 'he had brought two prayer-books.' Bob averred 'he
could not be mistaken; the old lady was buried in the near-vault;
though it was forty years before, he remembered it like last night.
They changed her into her lead coffin in the vault—he and the
undertaker together—her own servants would not put a hand to her.
She was buried in white satin, and with her rings on her fingers.
It was her fancy, and so ordered in her will. They said she was
mad. He'd know her face again if he saw her. She had a long hooked
nose; and her eyes were open. For, as he was told, she died in her
sleep, and was quite cold and stiff when they found her in the
morning. He went down and saw the coffin to-day, half an hour after
meeting his reverence.'The rector consulted his great warming-pan of a watch. It was
drawing near eleven. He fell into a reverie, and rambled slowly up
and down the aisle, with his hands behind his back, and his
dripping hat in them, swinging nearly to the flags,—now lost in the
darkness—now emerging again, dim, nebulous, in the foggy light of
the lanterns. When this clerical portrait came near, he was looking
down, with gathered brows, upon the flags, moving his lips and
nodding, as if counting them, as was his way. The doctor was
thinking all the time upon the one text:—Why should this livid
memorial of two great crimes be now disturbed, after an obscurity
of twenty-one years, as if to jog the memory of scandal, and set
the great throat of the monster baying once more at the old
midnight horror?And as for that old house at Ballyfermot, why any one could
have looked after it as well as he. 'Still he must live somewhere,
and certainly this little town is quieter than the city, and the
people, on the whole, very kindly, and by no means curious.' This
latter was a mistake of the doctor's, who, like other simple
persons, was fond of regarding others as harmless repetitions of
himself. 'And his sojourn will be,' he says, 'but a matter of
weeks; and the doctors mind wandered back again to the dead, and
forward to the remoter consequences of his guilt, so he heaved a
heavy, honest sigh, and lifted up his head and slackened his pace
for a little prayer, and with that there came the rumble of wheels
to the church door.
CHAPTER II.
THE NAMELESS COFFIN.
hree vehicles with flambleaux, and the clang and snorting of
horses came close to the church porch, and there appeared suddenly,
standing within the disc of candle-light at the church door, before
one would have thought there was time, a tall, very pale, and
peculiar looking young man, with very large, melancholy eyes, and a
certain cast of evil pride in his handsome face.
John Tracy lighted the wax candles which he had brought, and
Bob Martin stuck them in the sockets at either side of the cushion,
on the ledge of the pew, beside the aisle, where the prayer-book
lay open at 'the burial of the dead,' and the rest of the party
drew about the door, while the doctor was shaking hands very
ceremoniously with that tall young man, who had now stepped into
the circle of light, with a short, black mantle on, and his black
curls uncovered, and a certain air of high breeding in his
movements. 'He reminded me painfully of him who is gone, whom we
name not,' said the doctor to pretty Lilias, when he got home; he
has his pale, delicately-formed features, with a shadow of his evil
passions too, and his mother's large, sad eyes.'
And an elderly clergyman, in surplice, band, and white wig,
with a hard, yellow, furrowed face, hovered in, like a white bird
of night, from the darkness behind, and was introduced to Dr.
Walsingham, and whispered for a while to Mr. Irons, and then to Bob
Martin, who had two short forms placed transversely in the aisle to
receive what was coming, and a shovel full of earth—all ready. So,
while the angular clergyman ruffled into the front of the pew, with
Irons on one side, a little in the rear, both books open; the plump
little undertaker, diffusing a steam from his moist garments,
making a prismatic halo round the candles and lanterns, as he moved
successively by them, whispered a word or two to the young
gentleman [Mr. Mervyn, the doctor called him], and Mr. Mervyn
disappeared. Dr. Walsingham and John Tracy got into contiguous
seats, and Bob Martin went out to lend a hand. Then came the
shuffling of feet, and the sound of hard-tugging respiration, and
the suppressed energetic mutual directions of the undertaker's men,
who supported the ponderous coffin. How much heavier, it always
seems to me, that sort of load than any other of the same
size!
A great oak shell: the lid was outside in the porch, Mr.
Tressels was unwilling to screw it down, having heard that the
entrance to the vault was so narrow, and apprehending it might be
necessary to take the coffin out. So it lay its length with a dull
weight on the two forms. The lead coffin inside, with its dusty
black velvet, was plainly much older. There was a plate on it with
two bold capitals, and a full stop after each, thus;—
R. D. obiit May 11th, A.D. 1746. ætat 38.
And above this plain, oval plate was a little bit of an
ornament no bigger than a sixpence. John Tracy took it for a star,
Bob Martin said he knew it to be a Freemason's order, and Mr.
Tressels, who almost overlooked it, thought it was nothing better
than a fourpenny cherub. But Mr. Irons, the clerk, knew that it was
a coronet; and when he heard the other theories thrown out, being a
man of few words he let them have it their own way, and with his
thin lips closed, with their changeless and unpleasant character of
an imperfect smile, he coldly kept this little bit of knowledge to
himself.
Earth to earth (rumble), dust to dust (tumble), ashes to
ashes (rattle).
And now the coffin must go out again, and down to its final
abode.
The flag that closed the entrance of the vault had been
removed. But the descent of Avernus was not facile, the steps being
steep and broken, and the roof so low. Young Mervyn had gone down
the steps to see it duly placed; a murky, fiery light; came up,
against which the descending figures looked black and
cyclopean.
Dr. Walsingham offered his brother-clergyman his
hospitalities; but somehow that cleric preferred returning to town
for his supper and his bed. Mervyn also excused himself. It was
late, and he meant to stay that night at the Phœnix, and to-morrow
designed to make his compliments in person to Dr. Walsingham. So
the bilious clergyman from town climbed into the vehicle in which
he had come, and the undertaker and his troop got into the hearse
and the mourning coach and drove off demurely through the town; but
once a hundred yards or so beyond the turnpike, at such a pace that
they overtook the rollickingcortègeof the Alderman of Skinner's Alley upon the Dublin road, all
singing and hallooing, and crowing and shouting scraps of banter at
one another, in which recreations these professional mourners
forthwith joined them; and they cracked screaming jokes, and drove
wild chariot races the whole way into town, to the terror of the
divine, whose presence they forgot, and whom, though he shrieked
from the window, they never heard, until getting out, when the
coach came to a stand-still, he gave Mr. Tressels a piece of his
mind, and that in so alarming a sort, that the jolly undertaker,
expressing a funereal concern at the accident, was obliged to
explain that all the noise came from the scandalous party they had
so unfortunately overtaken, and that 'the drunken blackguards had
lashed and frightened his horses to a runaway pace, singing and
hallooing in the filthy way he heard, it being a standing joke
among such roisterers to put quiet tradesmen of his melancholy
profession into a false and ridiculous position.' He did not
convince, but only half puzzled the ecclesiastic, who muttering,
'credat Judæus,' turned his back upon Mr. Tressels, with an angry
whisk, without bidding him good-night.
Dr. Walsingham, with the aid of his guide, in the meantime,
had reached the little garden in front of the old house, and the
gay tinkle of a harpsichord and the notes of a sweet contralto
suddenly ceased as he did so; and he said—smiling in the dark, in a
pleasant soliloquy, for he did not mind John Tracy,—old John was
not in the way—'She always hears my step—always—little Lily, no
matter how she's employed,' and the hall-door opened, and a voice
that was gentle, and yet somehow very spirited and sweet, cried a
loving and playful welcome to the old man.
CHAPTER III.
MR. MERVYN IN HIS INN.
he morning was fine—the sun shone out with a yellow
splendour—all nature was refreshed—a pleasant smell rose up from
tree, and flower, and earth. The now dry pavement and all the row
of village windows were glittering merrily—the sparrows twittered
their lively morning gossip among the thick ivy of the old church
tower—here and there the village cock challenged his neighbour with
high and vaunting crow, and the bugle notes soared sweetly into the
air from the artillery ground beside the river.
Moore, the barber, was already busy making his morning
circuit, servant men and maids were dropping in and out at the
baker's, and old Poll Delany, in her weather-stained red hood, and
neat little Kitty Lane, with her bright young careful face and
white basket, were calling at the doors of their customers with new
laid eggs. Through half-opened hall doors you might see the
powdered servant, or the sprightly maid in her mob-cap in hot haste
steaming away with the red japanned 'tea kitchen' into the parlour.
The town of Chapelizod, in short, was just sitting down to its
breakfast.
Mervyn, in the meantime, had had his solitary meal in the
famous back parlour of the Phœnix, where the newspapers lay, and
all comers were welcome. He was by no means a bad hero to look at,
if such a thing were needed. His face was pale, melancholy,
statuesque—and his large enthusiastic eyes, suggested a story and a
secret—perhaps a horror. Most men, had they known all, would have
wondered with good Doctor Walsingham, why, of all places in the
world, he should have chosen the little town where he now stood for
even a temporary residence. It was not a perversity, but rather a
fascination. His whole life had been a flight and a pursuit—a vain
endeavour to escape from the evil spirit that pursued him—and a
chase of a chimera.
He was standing at the window, not indeed enjoying, as
another man might, the quiet verdure of the scene, and the fragrant
air, and all the mellowed sounds of village life, but lost in a sad
and dreadful reverie, when in bounced little red-faced bustling Dr.
Toole—the joke and the chuckle with which he had just requited the
fat old barmaid still ringing in the passage—'Stay there,
sweetheart,' addressed to a dog squeezing by him, and which
screeched out as he kicked it neatly round the door-post.
'Hey, your most obedient, Sir,' cried the doctor, with a
short but grand bow, affecting surprise, though his chief object in
visiting the back parlour at that moment was precisely to make a
personal inspection of the stranger. 'Pray, don't mind me,
Sir,—your—ho! Breakfast ended, eh? Coffee not so bad, Sir; rather
good coffee, I hold it, at the Phœnix. Cream very choice, Sir?—I
don't tell 'em so though (a wink); it might not improve it, you
know. I hope they gave you—eh?—eh? (he peeped into the cream-ewer,
which he turned towards the light, with a whisk). And no disputing
the eggs—forty-eight hens in the poultry yard, and ninety ducks in
Tresham's little garden, next door to Sturk's. They make a precious
noise, I can tell you, when it showers. Sturk threatens to shoot
'em. He's the artillery surgeon here; and Tom Larkin said, last
night, it's because they only dabble and quack—and two of a trade,
you know—ha! ha! ha! And what a night we had—dark as Erebus—pouring
like pumps, by Jove. I'll remember it, I warrant you. Out on
business—a medical man, you know, can't always choose—and near
meeting a bad accident too. Anything in the paper, eh? ho! I see,
Sir, haven't read it. Well, and what do you think—a queer night for
the purpose, eh? you'll say—we had a funeral in the town last
night, Sir—some one from Dublin. It was Tressel's men came out. The
turnpike rogue—just round the corner there—one of the talkingest
gossips in the town—and a confounded prying, tattling place it is,
I can tell you—knows the driver; and Bob Martin, the sexton, you
know—tells me there were two parsons, no less—hey! Cauliflowers in
season, by Jove. Old Dr. Walsingham, our rector, a pious man, Sir,
and does a world of good—that is to say, relieves half the
blackguards in the parish—ha! ha! when we're on the point of
getting rid of them—but means well, only he's a little bit lazy,
and queer, you know; and that rancid, raw-boned parson,
Gillespie—how the plague did they pick him up?—one of the mutes
told Bob 'twas he. He's from Donegal; I know all about him; the
sourest dog I ever broke bread with—and mason, if you please, by
Jove—a prince pelican! He supped at the Grand Lodge after labour,
one night—you'renot a mason, I
see; tipt you the sign—and his face was so pinched, and so yellow,
by Jupiter, I was near squeezing it into the punch-bowl for a
lemon—ha! ha! hey?'
Mervyn's large eyes expressed a well-bred surprise. Dr. Toole
paused for nearly a minute, as if expecting something in return;
but it did not come.
So the doctor started afresh, never caring for Mervyn's
somewhat dangerous looks.
'Mighty pretty prospects about here, Sir. The painters come
out by dozens in the summer, with their books and pencils, and
scratch away like so many Scotchmen. Ha! ha! ha! If you draw, Sir,
there's one prospect up the river, by the mills—upon my
conscience—but you don't draw?'
No answer.
'A little, Sir, maybe? Just for a maggot, I'll
wager—likemygood lady, Mrs.
Toole.' A nearer glance at his dress had satisfied Toole that he
was too much of a maccaroni for an artist, and he was thinking of
placing him upon the lord lieutenant's staff. 'We've capital horses
here, if you want to go on to Leixlip,' (where—this between
ourselves and the reader—during the summer months His Excellency
and Lady Townshend resided, and where, the old newspapers tell us,
they 'kept a public day every Monday,' and he 'had a levée, as
usual, every Thursday.') But this had no better success.
'If you design to stay over the day, and care for shooting,
we'll have some ball practice on Palmerstown fair-green to-day.
Seven baronies to shoot for ten and five guineas. One o'clock,
hey?'
At this moment entered Major O'Neill, of the Royal Irish
Artillery, a small man, very neatly got up, and with a decidedly
Milesian cast of countenance, who said little, but smiled
agreeably—
'Gentlemen, your most obedient. Ha, doctor; how goes
it?—anything new—anythingontheFreeman?'
Toole had scanned that paper, and hummed out, as he rumpled
it over,—'nothing—very—particular. Here's Lady Moira's ball: fancy
dresses—all Irish; no masks; a numerous appearance of the nobility
and gentry—upwards of five hundred persons. A good many of your
corps there, major?'
'Ay, Lord Blackwater, of course, and the general, and
Devereux, and little Puddock, and——'
'Sturkwasn't,' with a
grin, interrupted Toole, who bore that practitioner no good-will.
'A gentleman robbed, by two foot-pads, on Chapelizod-road, on
Wednesday night, of his watch and money, together with his hat, wig
and cane, and lies now in a dangerous state, having been much
abused; one of them dressed in an old light-coloured coat, wore a
wig. By Jupiter, major, if I was in General Chattesworth's place,
with two hundred strapping fellows at my orders, I'd get a
commission from Government to clear that road. It's too bad, Sir,
we can't go in and out of town, unless in a body, after night-fall,
but at the risk of our lives. [The convivial doctor felt this
public scandal acutely.] The bloody-minded miscreants, I'd catch
every living soul of them, and burn them alive in tar-barrels. By
Jove! here's old Joe Napper, of Dirty-lane's dead. Plenty of dry
eyes afterhim. And stay,
here's another row.' And so he read on.
In the meantime, stout, tightly-braced Captain Cluffe of the
same corps, and little dark, hard-faced, and solemn Mr. Nutter, of
the Mills, Lord Castlemallard's agents, came in, and half a dozen
more, chiefly members of the club, which met by night in the front
parlour on the left, opposite the bar, where they entertained
themselves with agreeable conversation, cards, backgammon,
draughts, and an occasional song by Dr. Toole, who was a florid
tenor, and used to give them, 'While gentlefolks strut in silver
and satins,' or 'A maiden of late had a merry design,' or some
other such ditty, with a recitation by plump little stage-stricken
Ensign Puddock, who, in 'thpite of hith lithp,' gave rather
spirited imitations of some of the players—Mossop, Sheridan,
Macklin, Barry, and the rest. So Mervyn, the stranger, by no means
affecting this agreeable society, took his cane and cocked-hat, and
went out—the dark and handsome apparition—followed by curious
glances from two or three pairs of eyes, and a whispered commentary
and criticism from Toole.
So, taking a meditative ramble in 'His Majesty's Park, the
Phœnix;' and passing out at Castleknock gate, he walked up the
river, between the wooded slopes, which make the valley of the
Liffey so pleasant and picturesque, until he reached the ferry,
which crossing, he at the other side found himself not very far
from Palmerstown, through which village his return route to
Chapelizod lay.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FAIR-GREEN OF PALMERSTOWN.
here were half-a-dozen carriages, and a score of led horses
outside the fair-green, a precious lot of ragamuffins, and a good
resort to the public-house opposite; and the gate being open, the
artillery band, rousing all the echoes round with harmonious and
exhilarating thunder, within—an occasional crack of a 'Brown Bess,'
with a puff of white smoke over the hedge, being heard, and the
cheers of the spectators, and sometimes a jolly chorus of
many-toned laughter, all mixed together, and carried on with a
pleasant running hum of voices—Mervyn, the stranger, reckoning on
being unobserved in the crowd, and weary of the very solitude he
courted, turned to his right, and so found himself upon the
renowned fair-green of Palmerstown.
It was really a gay rural sight. The circular target stood,
with its bright concentric rings, in conspicuous isolation, about a
hundred yards away, against the green slope of the hill. The
competitors in their best Sunday suits, some armed with muskets and
some with fowling pieces—for they were not particular—and with
bunches of ribbons fluttering in their three-cornered hats, and
sprigs of gay flowers in their breasts, stood in the foreground, in
an irregular cluster, while the spectators, in pleasant disorder,
formed two broad, and many-coloured parterres, broken into little
groups, and separated by a wide, clear sweep of green sward,
running up from the marksmen to the target.
In the luminous atmosphere the men of those days showed
bright and gay. Such fine scarlet and gold waistcoats—such sky-blue
and silver—such pea-green lutestrings—and pink silk linings—and
flashing buckles—and courtly wigs—or becoming powder—went
pleasantly with the brilliant costume of the stately dames and
smiling lasses. There was a pretty sprinkling of uniforms, too—the
whole picture in gentle motion, and the bugles and drums of the
Royal Irish Artillery filling the air with inspiring music.
All the neighbours were there—merry little Dr. Toole in his
grandest wig and gold-headed cane, with three dogs at his heels,—he
seldom appeared without this sort of train—sometimes
three—sometimes five—sometimes as many as seven—and his hearty
voice was heard bawling at them by name, as he sauntered through
the town of a morning, and theirs occasionally in short screeches,
responsive to the touch of his cane. Now it was, 'Fairy, you
savage, let that pig alone!' a yell and a scuffle—'Juno, drop it,
you slut'—or 'Cæsar, you blackguard, where are you going?'
'Look at Sturk there, with his lordship,' said Toole, to the
fair Magnolia, with a wink and a nod, and a sneering grin. 'Good
natured dog that—ha! ha! You'll find he'll oust Nutter at last, and
get the agency; that's what he's driving at—always undermining
somebody.' Doctor Sturk and Lord Castlemallard were talking apart
on the high ground, and the artillery surgeon was pointing with his
cane at distant objects. 'I'll lay you fifty he's picking holes in
Nutter's management this moment.'
I'm afraid there was some truth in the theory, and
Toole—though he did not remember to mention it—had an instinctive
notion that Sturk had an eye upon the civil practice of the
neighbourhood, and was meditating a retirement from the army, and a
serious invasion of his domain.
Sturk and Toole, behind backs, did not spare one another.
Toole called Sturk a 'horse doctor,' and 'the smuggler'—in
reference to some affair about French brandy, never made quite
clear to me, but in which, I believe, Sturk was really not to
blame; and Sturk called him 'that drunken little apothecary'—for
Toole had a boy who compounded, under the rose, his draughts,
pills, and powders in the back parlour—and sometimes, 'that smutty
little ballad singer,' or 'that whiskeyfied dog-fancier, Toole.'
There was no actual quarrel, however; they met freely—told one
another the news—their mutual disagreeabilities were administered
guardedly—and, on the whole, they hated one another in a
neighbourly way.
Fat, short, radiant, General Chattesworth—in full, artillery
uniform—was there, smiling, and making little speeches to the
ladies, and bowing stiffly from his hips upward—his great cue
playing all the time up and down his back, and sometimes so near
the ground when he stood erect and threw back his head, that Toole,
seeing Juno eyeing the appendage rather viciously, thought it
prudent to cut her speculations short with a smart kick.
His sister Rebecca—tall, erect, with grand lace, in a
splendid stiff brocade, and with a fine fan—was certainly
five-and-fifty, but still wonderfully fresh, and sometimes had
quite a pretty little pink colour—perfectly genuine—in her cheeks;
command sat in her eye and energy on her lip—but though it was
imperious and restless, there was something provokingly likeable
and even pleasant in her face. Her niece, Gertrude, the general's
daughter, was also tall, graceful—and, I am told, perfectly
handsome.
'Be the powers, she's mighty handsome!' observed 'Lieutenant
Fireworker' O'Flaherty, who, being a little stupid, did not
remember that such a remark was not likely to pleasure the charming
Magnolia Macnamara, to whom he had transferred the adoration of a
passionate, but somewhat battered heart.
'They must not see with my eyes that think so,' said Mag,
with a disdainful toss of her head.
'They say she's not twenty, but I'll wager a pipe of claret
she's something to the back of it,' said O'Flaherty, mending his
hand.
'Why, bless your innocence, she'll never see five-and-twenty,
and a bit to spare,' sneered Miss Mag, who might more truly have
told that tale of herself. 'Who's that pretty young man my Lord
Castlemallard is introducing to her and old Chattesworth?' The
commendation was a shot at poor O'Flaherty.
'Hey—so, my Lord knows him!' says Toole, very much
interested. 'Why that's Mr. Mervyn, that's stopping at the Phœnix.
A. Mervyn,—I saw it on his dressing case. See how she
smiles.'
'Ay, she simpers like a firmity kettle,' said scornful Miss
Mag.
'They're very grand to-day, the Chattesworths, with them two
livery footmen behind them,' threw in O'Flaherty, accommodating his
remarks to the spirit of his lady-love.
'That young buck's a man of consequence,' Toole rattled on;
'Miss does not smile on everybody.'
'Ay, she looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth, but
I warrant cheese won't choke her,' Magnolia laughed out with angry
eyes.
Magnolia's fat and highly painted parent—poor bragging,
good-natured, cunning, foolish Mrs. Macnamara, the widow—joined,
with a venemous wheeze in the laugh.
Those who suppose that all this rancour was produced by mere
feminine emulations and jealousy do these ladies of the ancient
sept Macnamara foul wrong. Mrs. Mack, on the contrary, had a fat
and genial soul of her own, and Magnolia was by no means a
particularly ungenerous rival in the lists of love. But Aunt
Rebecca was hoitytoity upon the Macnamaras, whom she would never
consent to more than half-know, seeing them with difficulty, often
failing to see them altogether—though Magnolia's stature and
activity did not always render that easy. To-day, for instance,
when the firing was brisk, and some of the ladies uttered pretty
little timid squalls, Miss Magnolia not only stood fire like brick,
but with her own fair hands cracked off a firelock, and was more
complimented and applauded than all the marksmen beside, although
she shot most dangerously wide, and was much nearer hitting old
Arthur Slowe than that respectable gentleman, who waved his hat and
smirked gallantly, was at all aware. Aunt Rebecca, notwithstanding
all this, and although she looked straight at her from a distance
of only ten steps, yet she could not see that large and
highly-coloured heroine; and Magnolia was so incensed at her serene
impertinence that when Gertrude afterwards smiled and courtesied
twice, she only held her head the higher and flung a flashing
defiance from her fine eyes right at that unoffending
virgin.
Everybody knew that Miss Rebecca Chattesworth ruled supreme
at Belmont. With a docile old general and a niece so young, she had
less resistance to encounter than, perhaps, her ardent soul would
have relished. Fortunately for the general it was only now and then
that Aunt Becky took a whim to command the Royal Irish Artillery.
She had other hobbies just as odd, though not quite so scandalous.
It had struck her active mind that such of the ancient women of
Chapelizod as were destitute of letters—mendicants and the
like—should learn to read. Twice a week her 'old women's school,'
under that energetic lady's presidency, brought together its
muster-roll of rheumatism, paralysis, dim eyes, bothered ears, and
invincible stupidity. Over the fire-place in large black letters,
was the legend, 'BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!' and out came the
horn-books and spectacles, and to it they went with their A-B ab,
etc., and plenty of wheezing and coughing. Aunt Becky kept good
fires, and served out a mess of bread and broth, along with some
pungent ethics, to each of her hopeful old girls. In winter she
further encouraged them with a flannel petticoat apiece, and there
was besides a monthly dole. So that although after a year there
was, perhaps, on the whole, no progress in learning, the affair
wore a tolerably encouraging aspect; for the academy had increased
in numbers, and two old fellows, liking the notion of the broth and
the 6d. a month—one a barber, Will Potts, ruined by a shake in his
right hand, the other a drunken pensioner, Phil Doolan, with a
wooden leg—petitioned to be enrolled, and were, accordingly,
admitted. Then Aunt Becky visited the gaols, and had a knack of
picking up the worst characters there, and had generally two or
three discharged felons on her hands. Some people said she was a
bit of a Voltarian, but unjustly; for though she now and then came
out with a bouncing social paradox, she was a good bitter
Church-woman. So she was liberal and troublesome—off-handed and
dictatorial—not without good nature, but administering her
benevolences somewhat tyrannically, and, for the most part, doing
more or less of positive mischief in the process.
And now the general ('old Chattesworth,' as the scornful
Magnolia called him) drew near, with his benevolent smirk, and his
stiff bows, and all his good-natured formalities—for the general
had no notion of ignoring his good friend and officer, Major
O'Neill, or his sister or niece—and so he made up to Mrs.
Macnamara, who arrested a narrative in which she was demonstrating
to O'Flaherty the general's lineal descent from old Chattesworth—an
army tailor in Queen Anne's time—and his cousinship to a live
butter dealer in Cork—and spicing her little history with not a
very nice epigram on his uncle, 'the counsellor,' by Dr. Swift,
which she delivered with a vicious chuckle in the 'Fireworker's'
ear, who also laughed, though he did not quite see the joke, and
said, 'Oh-ho-ho, murdher!'
The good Mrs. Mack received the general haughtily and
slightly, and Miss Magnolia with a short courtesy and a little toss
of her head, and up went her fan, and she giggled something in
Toole's ear, who grinned, and glanced uneasily out of the corner of
his shrewd little eye at the unsuspicious general and on to Aunt
Rebecca; for it was very important to Dr. Toole to stand well at
Belmont. So, seeing that Miss Mag was disposed to be vicious, and
not caring to be compromised by her tricks, he whistled and bawled
to his dogs, and with a jolly smirk and flourish of his cocked-hat,
off he went to seek other adventures.
Thus, was there feud and malice between two houses, and Aunt
Rebecca's wrong-headed freak of cutting the Macnamaras (for it was
not 'snobbery,' and she would talk for hours on band-days publicly
and familiarly with scrubby little Mrs. Toole), involved her
innocent relations in scorn and ill-will; for this sort of offence,
like Chinese treason, is not visited on the arch offender only, but
according to a scale of consanguinity, upon his kith and kin. The
criminal is minced—his sons lashed—his nephews reduced to
cutlets—his cousins to joints—and so on—none of the family quite
escapes; and seeing the bitter reprisals provoked by this kind of
uncharity, fiercer and more enduring by much than any begotten of
more tangible wrongs, Christian people who pray, 'lead us not into
temptation,' and repeat 'blessed are the peace-makers,' will, on
the whole, do wisely to forbear practising it.
As handsome, slender Captain Devereux, with his dark face,
and great, strange, earnest eyes, and that look of intelligence so
racy and peculiar, that gave him a sort of enigmatical interest,
stepped into the fair-green, the dark blue glance of poor Nan
Glynn, of Palmerstown, from under her red Sunday riding-hood,
followed the tall, dashing, graceful apparition with a stolen
glance of wild loyalty and admiration. Poor Nan! with thy fun and
thy rascalities, thy strong affections and thy fatal gift of
beauty, where does thy head rest now?
Handsome Captain Devereux!—Gipsy Devereux, as they called him
for his clear dark complexion—was talking a few minutes later to
Lilias Walsingham. Oh, pretty Lilias—oh, true lady—I never saw the
pleasant crayon sketch that my mother used to speak of, but the
tradition of thee has come to me—so bright and tender, with its
rose and violet tints, and merry, melancholy dimples, that I see
thee now, as then, with the dew of thy youth still on thee, and
sigh as I look, as if on a lost, early love of mine.
'I'm out of conceit with myself,' he said; 'I'm so idle and
useless; I wish that were all—I wish myself better, but I'm such a
weak coxcomb—a father-confessor might keep me nearer to my
duty—some one to scold and exhort me. Perhaps if some charitable
lady would take me in hand, something might be made of me
still.'
There was a vein of seriousness in this reverie which amused
the young lady; for she had never heard anything worse of him—very
young ladies seldom do hear the worst—than that he had played once
or twice rather high.
'Shall I ask Gertrude Chattesworth to speak to her Aunt
Rebecca?' said Lilias slyly. 'Suppose you attend her school in
Martin's Row, with "better late than never" over her chimneypiece:
there are two pupils of your own sex, you know, and you might sit
on the bench with poor Potts and good old Doolan.'
'Thank you. Miss Lilias,' he answered, with a bow and a
little laugh, as it seemed just the least bit in the world piqued;
'I know she would do it zealously; but neither so well nor so
wisely as others might; I wish I dare askyouto lecture me.'
'I!' said that young lady. 'Oh, yes, I forgot,' she went on
merrily,' five years ago, when I was a little girl, you once called
me Dr. Walsingham's curate, I was so grave—do you remember?'
She did not know how much obliged Devereux was to her for
remembering that poor little joke, and how much the handsome
lieutenant would have given, at that instant, to kiss the hand of
the grave little girl of five years ago.
'I was a more impudent fellow then,' he said, 'than I am now;
won't you forget my old impertinences, and allow me to make
atonement, and be your—yourveryhumble servant now?'
She laughed. 'Not my servant—but you know I can't help you
being my parishioner.'
'And as such surely I may plead an humble right to your
counsels and reproof. Yes, youshalllecture me—I'll bear it from none butyou, and the more you do it, the
happier, at least, you make me,' he said.