CHAPTER III. THE RUNAWAY.
I suppose I must be a very routine sort of creature, who loves to get into a groove and never leave it. Indeed, I recognize this feature of my disposition in the pleasure I feel in being left to myself, and my own humdrum way of diverting my time. At all events, I grew to like my life at Killyrotherum.
The monotony that would have driven most men to despair was to me soothing and grateful.
A breezy walk with Lizzy down to the village after breakfast, where she made whatever purchases the cares of household demanded, sufficed for exercise. After that I wrote a little in my own room,—short, jotting notes, that might serve to recall, on some future day, the scarcely tinted surface of my quiet existence, and occasionally putting down such points as puzzled me,—problems whose solution I must try to arrive at with time and opportunity. Perhaps a brief glance at the pages of this diary, as I open it at random, may serve to show how time went over with me.
Here is an entry:—
Friday, 17th November.—Mem., to find out from D. D. the exact explanation of his words last night, and which possibly fatigue may have made obscure to me. Is it Sir Wm. Vernon or the Pope who is Antichrist?
Query: also, would not brass money be better than no halfpence? and are not wooden shoes as good as bare feet?
Why does the parish clerk always bring up a chicken when he comes with a message?
Lizzy did not own she made the beefsteak dumpling, but the maid seemed to let the secret out by bringing in a little amethyst ring she had forgotten on the kitchen table. I wish she knew that I 'd be glad she could make dumplings. I am fond of dumplings. To try and tell her this.
Mrs. D. suspects Lizzy is attached to me. I don't think she approves of it. D. D. would not object if I became an Orangeman. Query, what effect would that have on my future career? Could I be an Orangeman without being able to sing the “Boyne Water”? for I never could hum a tune in my life. To inquire about this.
Who was the man who behaved badly to Lizzy? And how did he behave badly? This is a very vital point, though not easy to come at.
18th.—Lizzy likes—I may say loves—me. The avowal was made this morning, when I was carrying up two pounds of sugar and one of soap from the village. She said, “Oh, Mr. Gosslett, if you knew how unhappy I am!”
And I laid down the parcel, and, taking her hand in mine, said, “Darling, tell me all!” and she grew very red and flurried, and said, “Nonsense, don't be a fool! Take care Tobias don't run away with the soap. I wanted to confide in you, to trust you. I don't want to—” And there she fell a-crying, and sobbed all the way home, though I tried to console her as well as the basket would permit me. Mem.—Not to be led into any tendernesses till the marketing is brought home. Wonder does Lizzy require me to fight the man who behaved badly? What on earth was it he did?
A great discovery coming home from church to-day. D. D. asked me if I had detected anything in his sermon of that morning which I could possibly call violent, illiberal, or uncharitable. As I had not listened to it, I was the better able to declare that there was not a word of it I could object to. “Would you believe it, Gosslett,” said he,—and he never had called me Gosslett before,—“that was the very sermon they arraigned me for in the Queen's Bench; and that mild passage about the Virgin Mary, you 'd imagine it was murder I was instilling. You heard it to-day, and know if it's not true. Well, sir,” continued he, after a pause, “Tom MacNamara blackguarded me for twenty minutes on it before the whole court, screeching out, 'This is your parson! this is your instructor of the poor man! your Christian guide! your comforter! These are the teachings that are to wean the nation from bloodshed, and make men obedient to the law and grateful for its protection!' Why do you think he did this? Because I wouldn't give him my daughter,—a Papist rascal as he is! That's the whole of it. I published my sermon and sent it to the bishop, and he inhibited me! It was clear enough what he meant; he wanted to be made archbishop, and he knew what would please the Whigs. 'My Lord,' said I, 'these are the principles that placed the Queen on the throne of this realm. If it was n't to crush Popery he came, King William crossed the Boyne for nothing.'”
He went on thus till we reached home; but I had such a headache, from his loud utterance, that I had to lie down and sleep it off.
Monday, 31st.—A letter from Aunt Morse. Very dry and cold. Asks if I have sufficiently recovered from my late attack to be able to resume habits of activity and industry? Why, she knows well enough I have nothing to engage my activity and industry, for I will not be a coal-heaver, let uncle say what he likes. Aunt surmises that possibly some tender sentiment may be at the bottom of my attachment to Ireland, and sternly recalls me to the fact that I am not the possessor of landed property and an ancient family mansion in a good county. What can she mean by these warnings? Was it not herself that I overheard asking my uncle, “Would not he do for Lizzy?” How false women are! I wish I could probe that secret about the man that behaved ill; there are so many ways to behave ill, and to be behaved ill by. Shall I put a bold face on it, and ask Lizzy?
Great news has the post brought. Sir Morris Stamer is going out Lord High Commissioner to the Ionian Islands, and offers to take me as private sec.
It is a brilliant position, and one to marry on. I shall ask Lizzy to-day.
Wednesday, all settled;—but what have I not gone through these last three days! She loves me to distraction; but she 'll tell nothing,—nothing till we 're married. She says, and with truth, “confidence is the nurse of love.” I wish she was n't so coy. I have not even kissed her hand. She says Irish girls are all coy.
We are to run away, and be married at a place called Articlane. I don't know why we run away; but this is another secret I 'm to hear later on. Quiet and demure as she looks, Lizzy has a very decided disposition. She overbears all opposition, and has a peremptory way of saying, “Don't be a fool, G.!”—she won't call me Paul, only G.,—“and just do as I bade you.” I hope she 'll explain why this is so,—after our marriage.
I'm getting terribly afraid of the step we're about to take. I feel quite sure it was the Rev. Dan who shot the Papist on that anniversary affair; and I know he'd shoot me if he thought I had wronged him. Is there any way out of this embarrassment?
What a headache I have! We have been singing Orange songs for four hours. I think I hear that odious shake on the word “ba-a-t-tle,” as it rhymes to “rat—tie,” in old Dan's song. It goes through my brain still; and tomorrow, at daybreak, we're to run away! Lizzy's bundle is here, in my room; and Tom Ryan's boat is all ready under the rocks, and we're to cross the bay. It sounds very rash when one comes to think of it. I'm sure my Aunt Morse will never forgive it. But Lizzy, all so gentle and docile as she seems, has a very peremptory way with her; and as she promises to give me explanations for everything later on, I have agreed to all. How it blows! There has not been so bad a night since I came here. If it should be rough to-morrow morning, will she still insist on going? I 'm a poor sort of sailor at the best of times; but if there's a sea on, I shall be sick as a dog! And what a situation,—a seasick bridegroom running off with bis bride! That was a crash! I thought the old house was going clean away. The ploughs and harrows they 've put on the roof to keep the slates down perform very wild antics in a storm.
I suppose this is the worst climate in Europe. D. D. said, yesterday, that the length of the day made the only difference between summer and winter; and, oh dear! what an advantage does this confer on winter?
Now to bed,—though I'm afraid not to sleep; amid such a racket and turmoil, rest is out of the question. Who knows when, where, and how I shall make the next entry in this book? But, as Mr. Dudgeon says, when he finishes his tumbler, “Such is life! such is life!”
I wonder will Lizzy insist on going on if the weather continues like this? I'm sure no boatman with a wife and family could be fairly asked to go out in such a storm. I do not think I would have the right to induce a poor man to peril his life, and the support of those who depend upon him, for my own—what shall I call it?—my own gratification,—that might be for a picnic;—my own,—no, not happiness, because that is a term of time and continuity;—my own—There goes a chimney, as sure as fate! How they sleep here through everything! There 's that fellow who minds the cows snoring through it all in the loft overhead; and he might, for all he knew, have been squashed under that fall of masonry. Was that a tap at the door? I thought I heard it twice.
Yes, it was Lizzy. She had not been to bed. She went out as far as the church rock to see the sea. She says it was grander than she could describe. There is a faint moon, and the clouds are scudding along, as though racing against the waves below; but I refuse to go out and see it, all the same. I 'll turn in, and try to get some sleep before morning.
I was sound asleep, though the noise of the storm was actually deafening, when Lizzy again tapped at my door, and at last, opening it slightly, pushed a lighted candle inside, and disappeared. If there be a dreary thing in life, it is to get up before day of a dark, raw morning, in a room destitute of all comfort and convenience, and proceed to wash and dress in cold, gloom, and misery, with the consciousness that what you are about to do not only might be safer and better undone, but may, and not at all improbably will, turn out the rashest act of your life.
Over and over I said to myself, “If I were to tell her that I have a foreboding,—a distinct foreboding of calamity; that I dreamed a dream, and saw myself on a raft, while waves, mountain high, rose above me, and depths yawned beneath,—dark, fathomless, and terrible,—would she mind it?” I declare, on my sacred word of honor,—I declare I think she'd laugh at me!
“Are you ready?” whispered a soft voice at the door; and I saw at once my doom was pronounced.
Noiselessly, stealthily, we crept down the stairs, and, crossing the little flagged kitchen, undid the heavy bars of the door. Shall I own that a thought of treason shot through me as I stood with the great bolt in my hands, and the idea flashed across me, “What if I were to let it fall with a crash, and awake the household?” Did she divine what was passing in my head, as she silently took the bar from me, and put it away?
We were now in the open air, breasting a swooping nor'-wester that chilled the very marrow of my bones. She led the way through the dark night as though it were noonday, and I followed, tumbling over stones and rocks and tufts of heather, and falling into holes, and scrambling out again like one drunk. I could hear her laughing at me too,—she who so seldom laughed; and it was with difficulty she could muster gravity enough to say she hoped I had not hurt myself.
We gained the pier at last, and, guided by a lantern held by one of the boatmen, we saw the boat bobbing and tossing some five feet down below. Lizzy sprang in at once, amidst the applauding cheers of the crew; and then several voices cried out, “Now, sir! Now, your honor!” while two stout fellows pushed me vigorously, as though to throw me into the sea. I struggled and fought manfully, but in vain. I was jerked off my legs, and hurled headlong down, and found myself caught below by some strong arms, though not until I had half sprained my wrist, and barked one of my shins from knee to instep. These sufferings soon gave way to others, as I became sea-sick, and lay at the bottom of the boat, praying we might all go down, and end a misery I could no longer endure. That spars struck me, and ballast rolled over me; that heavy-footed sailors trampled me, and seemed to dance on me,—were things I minded not. Great waves broke over the bows, and came in sheets of foam and water over me. What cared I? I had that death-like sickness that makes all life hideous, and I felt I had reached a depth of degradation and misery in which there was only one desire,—that for death. That we succeeded in clearing the point which formed one side of the bay was little short of a miracle, and I remember the cheer the boatmen gave as the danger was passed, and my last hope of our all going down left me. After this, I know no more.
A wild confusion of voices, a sort of scuffling uproar, a grating sound, and more feet dancing over me, aroused me. I looked up. It was dawn; a gray murky streak lay towards the horizon, and sheets of rain were carried swiftly on the winds. We were being dragged up on a low shingly shore, and the men—up to their waists in water—were carrying the boat along.
As I looked over the gunwale, I saw a huge strong fellow rush down the slope, and breasting the waves as they beat, approach the boat. Lizzy sprang into his arms at once, and he carried her back to land triumphantly. I suppose at any other moment a pang of jealousy might have shot through me. Much sea-sickness, like perfect love, overcometh all things. I felt no more, as I gazed, than if it had been a bundle he had been clasping to his bosom.
They lifted me up, and laid me on the shingle.
“Oh, do, Tom; he is such a good creature!” said a voice which, low as it was, I heard distinctly.
“By all that's droll! this is the Cockney I met at Mor-risson's!” cried a loud voice. I looked up; and there, bending over me, was Counsellor MacNamara, the bland stranger I had fallen in with at Dublin.
“Are you able to get on your legs,” asked he, “or shall we have you carried?”
“No,” said I, faintly; “I 'd rather lie here.”
“Oh, we can't leave him here, Tom; it's too cruel.”
“I tell you, Lizzy,” said he, impatiently, “there's not a minute to lose.”
“Let them carry him, then,” said she, pleadingly.
I mildly protested my wish to live and die where I lay; but they carried me up somewhere, and they put me to bed, and they gave me hot drinks, and I fell into, not a sleep, but a trance, that lasted twenty-odd hours.
“Faix! they had a narrow escape of it,” were the first intelligible words I heard on awaking. “They were only just married and druv off when old Dan Dudgeon came up, driving like mad. He was foaming with passion, and said if he went to the gallows for it, he 'd shoot the rascal that abused his hospitality and stole his daughter. The lady left this note for your honor.”
It went thus:—
“Dear Mr. Gosslett,—You will, I well know, bear me no ill-will for the little fraud I have practised on you. It was an old engagement, broken off by a momentary imprudence on Tom's part; but as I knew he loved me, it was forgiven. My father would not have ever consented to the match, and we were driven to this strait. I entreat you to forgive and believe me
“Most truly yours,
“Lizzy MacNamara.”
I stole quietly out of Ireland after this, and got over to the Isle of Man, where I learned that my patron had thrown up his Ionian appointment, and I was once again on the world.