Читать книгу The Fortunes of Hector O'Halloran, and His Man, Mark Antony O'Toole - W. H. Maxwell - Страница 28

The countrymen seized the intended hero by one arm, the crimps held on as doggedly by the other; and as both parties pulled stoutly, it might have been supposed that they intended to partition the victim between them. Pushes were succeeded by blows,—the mêlée became general.—Mark Antony joined the soldiers, the Jew sided with the countrymen, four or five couples were actively engaged in the centre of the floor—and divers on both sides, who, either from want of room or inclination had abstained from a personal display, carried on a sort of guerilla warfare, and, acting en tirailleur, kept up a lively discharge of turfs and pewter measures, apparently with perfect indifference as to whether the sculls their missiles might invade should prove Tyrian or Trojan. While delivering a murderous blow at his opponent, a recruit, with a sweep of his cudgel, brought down a shelf on which sundry specimens of the fine arts had been deposited; and, in the very act of deprecating hostilities, the commander received an erratic visit from a three-legged stool, which destroyed his perpendicular and sent him flying through a cupboard. The boy, small as he was, did not escape—he was driven through his own drum-head; and that stirring instrument of war was silenced most effectually.

But battles have their limit—men cannot fight for ever,

“The hottest steed will soonest cool;-

The fiercest day with evening closes.”

Irish rows end as quickly as they commence, and the rookarn’n in the Cock and Punch-bowl at last began to languish. Sundry who had already figured in the fray, now cried “hold! enough!”—and others who had saluted their mother earth still remained there recumbent, opining that under existing circumstances, this position was the safer. Two combatants however, still remained unsatisfied. They had sought each other in the conflict; and now, by a sort of general consent, the floor was abandoned by all the other belligerents, and like bulls in a china shop, the fosterer and the Israelite were left with the arena to themselves.

Both were influenced by a deep feeling of personal hostility. The Jew hated (as Jews only know how to hate) because he had been rivalled and rejected. The fosterer, more than half in love, abhorred the Israelite for imagining aught that was injurious against the cantatrice who had elected him her knight; and further, from a pre-knowledge of Mr. Montague’s pugilistic accomplishments, Mark Antony was dying for an opportunity to ascertain whether his own talents in that line had not been rather overrated, forgetting that in his own country no man is accounted above his value—be they pugilists or prophets.

But the men were matched unequally; and consequently the conflict was soon ended. In years the Jew was stale, and in heart a very coward—while with length and activity, the fosterer was fresh as a four-year-old and bold as a tiger. The “master of fence” proved not worth “a dish of stewed prunes”—he turned out nothing but a cur, and the desperate onslaught of the fosterer at once demolished his defensive system. The finale was sudden: in a few seconds the unbeliever lay stretched upon the floor of the Cock and Punch-bowl, and, to all appearance, defunct as Julius Cæsar. Heaven help him! The chances against the circumcised sinner were desperate all through.

Mrs. O’Leary was making a radical change in her toilet when she heard the alarm, and before she was ready for battle, the battle was over. Down she sallied like a Bacchante. Alas! it was only to see a defeated Israelite on the floor, and witness a demolition of property, the value of which was, like pearls, above price.

“Oh, heavenly Antony!” she exclaimed, and clapped her hands wildly together, “if ivir I underwint such ruination since I was a girl. A man kilt in the house, and the image of my brother Dick that came from Philadelphy, all in smithereens!” and she picked up fragments of plaster of Paris which once had formed “a busto framed with every grace.”

“There’s the Queen of Sheba on the-broad of her back upon the floor, and the divil a morsel of the Prodigal Son left, good nor bad.” She cast her eyes doubtfully around her, “Holy Bridget!” she continued, “why the door of the clock-case is in two halves! Murder! murder!—was ivir a lone woman brought to sich desalashin, and all done while ye could say Jack Robison! Arrah! what set ye a fightin’, wid plenty of liquor, and ye singin’ like blackbirds when I left ye. May the widda’s curse fall on them, night and day, that caused the skrimmage!” Then turning to the fosterer, she inquired if he had been wounded in the affray, and with a marked anxiety Mrs. O’Leary investigated the outer man of Mark Antony. Perceiving, however, that he was personally undamaged, she continued her inquiries as to the origin of what she called the ruchshin, intending no doubt to ameree the offender heavily for the losses she had sustained. Manifold were the causes alleged; but all, and by common consent, laid the blame on Mr. Montague. He was a Jew, therefore no allegation against him could be too bad. He was dead, and consequently he could deny nothing. Accordingly, the downfal of the Queen of Sheba, the demolition of my brother Dick, and the destruction of the Prodigal Son, all and every were placed to the account of the defunct, and carried in the affirmative, neniine contradicente.

But Mr. Montague was not dead. Like greater men, finding that the current of popular opinion had turned against him, he decided that nothing professional could be effected by a longer sojourn at the Cock and Punch-bowl, and that the sooner he abdicated the better. Accordingly while a noisy reconciliation was being effected, Mr. Montague “cut his lucky,” the belligerents returned to the table,—in a deep “doch a durris” all animosity was extinguished, and the whole separated as a Christian company should part, having in due course, and after the fashion of that pleasant country, drank, fought, committed murder, and sworn an eternal friendship afterwards.

Morning came, and the hostlerie of Mrs. O’Leary at cock-crow was in a bustle. The fosterer and his fair companion preparing for the road, and the sergeant, with his charge of foot, girding up their loins to proceed to Cahirmore. All however seemed in melancholy mood; some laying it upon love, while others left it upon liquor. Mark Antony was regularly bothered; and the actress, poor girl, sadly cast down at the immediate prospect of parting from one, who had proved himself a kind and generous protector. Nor had the jolly hostess escaped a visitation of the heart. What, though for three years she had eschewed all overtures to revisit the temple of Hymen, and rejected more suitors than Penelope, still the widow was flesh and blood like other people; and satisfied that in the person of Mark Antony O’Toole the cardinal virtues were united, she was ready for matrimony on demand, and prepared on the first summons to surrender the Cock and Punch-bowl—of course on honourable terms.

All these visitations were of the sentimental order; but those sustained by the men of war were unhappily corporeal. It is true that the sergeant had a thick skull, but what chances have skulls with cupboards? and in the recent collision the skull of the commander was damaged grievously; the fifer’s mouth was totally destroyed by a flush hit; each of the recruits had been favoured with a black eye; and, even to the diminutive drummer, none passed the ordeal unscathed.

Somebody,—I think Shenstone,—after insinuating that he had travelled “earth’s dull round,” declares that “the warmest welcome’s in an inn.” Well, that may be the case; but the wayfarer cunningly passes over that brief but painful moment when the bell is gently touched, and a bill reluctantly requested with all the indifference a man in such circumstances can assume. That unlucky period had arrived. The sergeant inquired “what was to pay?” and the hostess responded, by producing a huge slate, and pointing to a long array of figures scored to the debit of the commander. At the sight of this, the countenance of the worthy man underwent a striking elongation; and he who beneath the withering glance of the conqueror of Lodi had not blanched, became pale as a ghost while he gazed on the hieroglyphics of the lady of the Cock and Punch-bowl. The commander shook his head, and the shake was significant; while the fifer stoutly affirmed that the whole of the nocturnal symposium had been charged against the protectors of the realm.

“Arrah, what balderdash!” exclaimed the hostess; “don’t ye see four and eightpence agin the Carneys, wid a cross upon it, because it’s ped? Mr. O’Toole goes free; and there’s fairly against ye all, two and fourpence for ating, and eleven and ninepence for the drink.”

But the charge of foot, even from the drum-boy to the commander, persisted in protestations of incredulity; and Mrs. O’Leary, irritated that the accuracy of her reckoning should be doubted, gave indications of a “flare-up” which might have brought about another general engagement.

“Bad luck attend yes for a set of thieves! Wasn’t it enough for ye to tatter my consarn, without bilkin me of my bill?”

In Ireland, questions are answered by interrogatories; and if you ask the way to a place, the reply will probably be an inquiry as to whether you “met a donkey on the road, or noticed a blind woman with twins upon her back?”

“Who tattered y’er consarn?” responded the sergeant.

“Who knocked the fire out of my eye wid a clod of turf as hard as a paving stone?” inquired a recruit.

“Who druv me thro’ the drum-head?” screamed the boy.

“Who split my lip?” demanded the fifer.

“Don’t be bothering me about y’er drums and y’er misfortins!” replied the hostess, cold to the losses thus sustained in person and property by her unhappy visitors; “but for once in y’er lives, be honest, and down wid the reckoning.”

The sergeant saw that it was idle to remonstrate, and he produced a one-pound note, called for a pint of whisky, received it and the change, bolted his “morning”—an example duly followed by all, even to the drummer; and, accompanied by his gallant following, wended his way in sadness and silence towards the Pattern of Cahirmore. For once, military pomp and pride were dispensed with,—the fife was mute, the drum beat no point of war, and the commander and his charge of foot stole off as modestly from the hostelrie, as if instead of being engaged over-night in pointing out the path of glory to the Carneys, they had picked pockets like the Jew, or robbed the widow’s hen-roost.

The parting between the men of war and the lady of the Cock and Punch-bowl was not accompanied with any ebullition of “sweet sorrow” upon either side, the commander hinting that it was his intention to transfer his patronage to the Cat and Bagpipes for the future; and the hostess declaring, that “the loss was small, and were he better they were welcome to him.” But a tenderer trial was at hand; and when Mark Antony and the fair cantatrice announced that they were about to take the road, the widow’s grief burst forth.

“Arrah, stay!” she said. “Rest yourselves for a day or two longer. Well, ye won’t. Put up y’er purse, astore. Is it for me to charge craters of y’er sort for a trifle of entertainment? Sorrow rap I’d take if ye stay’d here a twelvemonth. The world’s wide; and many a straggler finds it hard to get across it. Well, jewel! if you stick fast, as many a man has done before ye, turn back to the widow’s home, and here’s y’er ceade fealteagh * waiting for ye. When ye want it, ye’ll find something in the basket,” and she placed a small one in the fosterer’s hand. “And now, as y’er for goin, may the Lord protect ye both!” Mrs. O’Leary wiped a tear away with the corner of her apron, kissed the pale girl affectionately, while the smack she gave Mark Antony might have been heard distinctly across the road. Next moment the wayfarers were over the hospitable threshold, and “the world was all before them where to choose.”

* Anglicè—a warm welcome.

The sky was clear, the country had become picturesque, the birds sang merrily, the road was sprinkled by an early shower, and on a pleasanter morning a light-bosomed traveller never wended on his way. Alas!

“The merry heart goes all the day.

But the sad one tires in a mile a;”

and before half the journey was completed, the girl showed symptoms of fatigue.

“You are weary, Julia,” said the fosterer; “sit down, avourneein. In yonder corner there is a shady bank, and a stream too; ay, and with water blue and sparkling as your own soft eyes. Come, dearest.”

The pale girl looked steadily and suspiciously at her companion; but one glance dispelled her fears. The face she scrutinized was honest; and without hesitation, she quitted the high road, and seated herself on a fallen tree in the sheltered glade to which Mark Antony had pointed. Well,—she might do so safely. In grain, the fosterer was a gentleman; and, for a queen’s ransom, he would not have abused confidence placed in his honour, or have imagined aught that was evil against a woman whose helplessness called upon him for protection. He flung himself at her feet upon the sward, and opening the widow’s basket, produced a chicken, some oaten cakes, and a cruiskeeine of native whisky. The fowl was speedily dismembered; the contents of the flask diluted with the clear cold water of the rivulet; and, with kindly warmth, her companion urged the wanderer to refresh herself. But, poor girl! her heart was full. She gently put aside the food presented to her; tears fell fast, and hiding her face between her hands, she seemed to give way to some secret sorrow, too deep, too poignant for concealment.

The fosterer, but in vain, endeavoured to cheer her sinking spirits. The cruislteeine was laid down untasted; and while with youth’s ardent eloquence, Mark Antony pointed to happiness in the distance, the deep sobs of his companion told that from her bosom that hope which cheers the darkest hour of life, was long departed.

“Come, come, Julia,” he said, pressing her hand in his, “why will you be so down-hearted?”

The poor girl raised her eyes. She did not reply; but her look betrayed the agony of the heart, and its sad and silent expression had “the calmness of settled despair.”

“And have you been very—very unfortunate, Julia?” pursued the fosterer.

The wanderer mournfully shook her head.

“And left home, and friends, and—”

“Father!” exclaimed the girl, wildly, with a maniac’s suddenness.

“Were you decoyed away by a villain?

“He who wrecked my peace is in the grave. May Heaven pardon him as sincerely as I wish it!”

“Probably under the promise of marriage?” said the fosterer, with the hesitation that a man feels who asks a question which possibly may cause pain or give offence.

“The promise!” exclaimed the girl, while her pale cheeks flushed, and her eye lightened as if repelling a derogatory insinuation. No, no; it was indeed a sad reality, although the act was villanous and putting her hand into her bosom, she drew forth a wedding-ring, secured by a black ribbon. “There is the token that I was a lawful wife; and there, also, a memorial that I was a—” She paused.

“What?” exclaimed the fosterer.

“A worthless daughter. Worthless! worse far;—a parricide! Yes, yes; I murdered him. My misconduct broke his heart. My ingratitude quenched his broken spirit. I did not drug him to death; but I poisoned his happiness, and sent him to the grave. Am I not, then, a murderess?”

She flung herself wildly upon the fallen tree, and sobbed convulsively. “Be calm;” said Mark Antony, pressing her hand; “I have given you pain; but Heaven knows I would not, if—”

“No, no,” exclaimed the girl, “you meant no harm; but where guilt abides, the conscience takes alarm. For a sad, sad, twelvemonth your’s is the only heart that has warmed to me; your’s the only ear to which I would confide my story. Hear me; and then say whether the crime or the retribution has been the greater. I am calm; but it seems to me a melancholy pleasure to disclose to a being who will sympathize, how much I have sinned, and how much I have suffered.”’ She rose,—walked a few paces to a rock from which the mountain streamlet dropped into a basin which itself had formed; and having bathed her aching temples in the water, returned, and, to a most attentive listener, she thus detailed her history.