KATHALEEN NY-HOULAHAN.
Long they pine in weary woe, the nobles of our land,
Long they wander to and fro, proscribed, alas! and banned;
Feastless, houseless, altarless, they bear the exile’s brand,
But their hope is in the coming-to of Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan!
Think her not a ghastly hag, too hideous to be seen,
Call her not unseemly names, our matchless Kathaleen;
Young she is, and fair she is, and would be crowned a queen,
Were the king’s son at home here with Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan!
Sweet and mild would look her face, O none so sweet and mild,
Could she crush the foes by whom her beauty is reviled;
Woollen plaids would grace herself and robes of silk her child,
If the king’s son were living here with Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan!
Sore disgrace it is to see the Arbitress of thrones,
Vassal to a Saxoneen of cold and sapless bones!
Bitter anguish wrings our souls—with heavy sighs and groans
We wait the Young Deliverer of Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan!
Let us pray to Him who holds Life’s issues in His hands—
Him who formed the mighty globe, with all its thousand lands;
Girdling them with seas and mountains, rivers deep, and strands,
To cast a look of pity upon Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan!
He, who over sands and waves led Israel along—
He, who fed, with heavenly bread, that chosen tribe and throng—
He, who stood by Moses, when his foes were fierce and strong—
May He show forth His might in saving Kathaleen-Ny-Houlahan!
M.
CAUSE AND EFFECT,
OR THE MISFORTUNES OF CHARLEY MALONE.
“Well,” said Hubert Dillon to me one day, “did you ever hear or read of such an unlucky being as that Charley Malone?”
“Indeed I did,” was my reply; “on the contrary, I look upon him as one of the most fortunate men in existence.”
“Tut, tut! how can you say that, unless it be for the pure love of contradiction?—how long is it ago, I ask you, since he almost broke his neck riding the steeple-chase in Mullaghmoran?”
“Why, my dear fellow,” I rejoined, “I consider him most miraculously fortunate in not having broken his neck altogether on the occasion; he was warned before hand that the horse couldn’t possibly carry him over such a leap; and how he escaped so safely, will always remain a puzzle to me.”
“Well, I’ll give you another instance—the very morning he was to have fought Cornet Bagley, didn’t the police catch him, and get him bound over?”
“And devilish well for him they did, let me tell you, otherwise poor Charley would have been a case for the coroner before dinner time. The cornet’s a dead shot, and you know yourself that Charley couldn’t hit a turf clamp.”
“Didn’t he lose fifty pounds at hazard to George Byrne last winter in one night?”
“Sign’s on it, he booked himself against the bones for ever and a day as soon as he got up next morning, and by consequence may be expected to have something to leave to the heirs of his body, when he has them.”
“Well, talking of heirs: what have you to say to his matrimonial speculations, this last affair particularly—to lose such a girl and such a fortune by his own confounded blundering. You’ll not call that good fortune surely.” But our reminiscences of “Charley’s last,” thus recalled, were too much for mortal gravity to bear, and laughter, long, loud, and uproarious, cut short the argument, leaving me still however impressed with the belief, that, only for himself, Charley would be a second Fortunatus; at all events, that he could not justly announce himself a martyr to the frowns of the goddess.
In the first place, two uncles, five cousins, and an elder brother of his own, had all stood between him and the family property, worth three hundred a-year, or thereabouts, but with an alacrity and good nature quite exemplary to all uncles and cousins under similar circumstances, they all within a couple of years quitted the scene. Before the last of them was sodded, however, Charley took it into his head to borrow some money, on the chance of his inheritance, at twenty per cent. As the aforesaid chance was rather a good one, he was soon accommodated; but the wax on the bond was scarce cold when he was called to the joy of mourning at the funeral of his last impediment. Oh, if he had had but the luck to wait one week!—he was the most unfortunate dog in the world!
Still, matrimony might enable him to retrieve all, and accordingly to work he went, and wild work, sure enough, he made of it. His last affair in that line, however, being that which fairly convinced him of the unprofitable nature of his pursuit, and likewise being rather a good thing in its way, is the only one which I shall offer in illustration of Charley’s luck and Charley’s mode of managing it.
A letter, directed in female fashion, was handed to him one morning by the postmaster of B——, the town contiguous to which lay his mansion; thus ran its contents, with the commentary of the reader:—
“Dear Charles—[has she the tin, I wonder?] a severe attack of rheumatism [pooh! it’s from my aunt Bindon—hum—ay—Marsh’s prescriptions—Mr Gregg’s new chapel—have to sacrifice all and quit Dublin—hallo! what’s this?] Your cousin Lucy [they say she has three thousand] has suffered so much from the bad air of the city, that I must endeavour to procure her the benefit of a country residence. I would prefer the town of B——, if there be a good house to let in it. Pray let me know as soon as you can, and the rent, and every thing about it, &c. &c.—Your attached aunt,
Lucy Bindon.”
Who shall say now that Charley wasn’t a lucky dog, with a handsome heiress almost thrown into his arms by a dowager-guardian, with whom he stood as dear Charles? What numberless opportunities would he not enjoy! Sole protector of two lone women; the one laid up by rheumatism, and fully occupied by devotion and card-playing; the other dying for the want of country air and exercise, and in all probability not at all averse to the idea of sharing her delights with a companion. They would be absolutely his own fee-simple property. Such good fortune was not an every-day affair, and deserved more than every-day exertion to second and secure it. So Charley set about his aunt’s commission in earnest, and before nightfall succeeded in ferreting a half-pay lieutenant and his family out of the best house in the town, to make room for the dowager and her daughter; wrote in reply an account of his doings, with such a list of the amenities of the locality as would have added fifty per cent, at least, to its value if it were to be sold by auction; and inclosed at the same time a well-authenticated statement of a most extraordinary cure of rheumatism which had been effected by the waters of a blessed well in the neighbourhood.
In due course of time the ladies were domiciled in their new dwelling, with Charley, of course, for their factotum and natural protector. The blessed well began to work a miracle on the aunt, and the country air would have done as much for Lucy if she required it; but deuce a bit of it she wanted; her cheeks were as red and her step as firm as if she had been born and bred within the precincts of the parish; and whatever was the cause of her rustication, Charley could swear it was not bodily weakness. Ill-natured people said she had been a thought too sweet to an attorney’s apprentice in the city, and that therein lay the secret of her mother’s forsaking the delights of Marsh’s prescriptions and Gregg’s new chapel—that prudent personage not approving of the connection. If that be the case, a tough heart had Lucy Bindon, and never may it be my lot to make such a faint impression on womankind as was made by that luckless apprentice; for a merrier laugh never rang in the precincts of B——, and a brighter pair of eyes never glittered in its dull, quiet street. But, oh! that laugh and those eyes, they played the devil entirely with the heart of her cousin Charley.
And he was a happy man, as why the deuce shouldn’t he? philandering, morning, noon, and night, with his merry cousin in the fields and in the woods, and at the fireside and by the piano, not to talk of all the dangerous little reunions on the stairs or in the lobby, until at last the dowager began to smell a rat, and hint her scruples about the propriety of cousin-work. In vain did Lucy disclaim all matrimonial intents, and assure her that it was all innocence, mere flirting, a bit of fun and no more, upon her word and honour. Still the poor woman would not be comforted; she knew, she said, several cases of cousins getting married, and somehow or other something or other happened to point out the impropriety in each case. In one, both parties died before they were twenty years married—indeed, they were a little oldish and sickly; in another, the gentleman got into debt and ruined himself; in another, the lady took to drinking; and in another, sundry and several small infants exchanged their cradles for coffins; all which terrible examples, however, and their strange and unusual phenomena, had no effect at all on Charley, for he was determined to win his point in spite of all the dowagers that ever took snuff, or all the enumerated horrors of their experience.
After all, though, there were not so many obstacles to encounter in that quarter as at first appeared, there being one great recommendation in his favour, inasmuch as he was neither counsellor nor attorney, in embryo or in esse; from the members of both which learned and respectable professions the defunct Mr Bindon had received in his day so many unneighbourly offices, that his relict conceived it a sacred duty to the dead to hate the aforesaid with all the hatred of which a stiff-necked Irish dowager was capable; and, then, he was her own flesh and blood, and who had such a good right to Lucy and her three thousand? or who would be so much benefited by it? and when Lucy liked him, why should she, the dowager, gainsay it, and so on until all her objections evaporated, and at last she became as anxious for the match as if she had come down on purpose to promote it. But, Lucy—oh woman! woman! she did not wish to get married at all—couldn’t think of quitting her own dear mamma; of course, if mamma insisted, she would obey, but, ’deed and word, she’d much rather not. In short, she exhibited to the wondering eyes of her bothered lover as pretty a piece of coquetry as ever baulked a gentleman on the highroad to his desires. Things, however, went on promising enough, for Charley found it impossible to despair with so much odds in his favour, particularly while the lady was as frank and merry as ever. And thus, between laughing and quarrelling, the month of February arrived, in which Mrs B. and her future son-in-law intended the marriage should take place, if Lucy’s consent could be won in any form. Charley, for the purpose of raising the wind for the occasion, had arranged to send a horse to Dublin to be sold, and some whim seized him to ride the animal himself, and be present at the sale. The day before he was to depart, he intimated his intention to his beloved, inquiring if she had any commands.
“Going to ride to Dublin!” exclaimed the astonished Lucy. “Seventy miles at the least. Why, man, you have such a happy knack of blundering that you’ll most certainly lose your way. Good bye, Charley; I’ll never see your face again.”
“Tut!” rejoined Charley indignantly, “how could I miss my way when there’s a milestone on every inch of the road from this to Dublin?”
“Not on every inch, Charley,” continued the provoking girl, “only on every mile; but I always give you leave to speak twice, you know. Well, and when do you expect to reach Dublin, please the milestones?”
“I shall set off to-morrow morning,” answered he, a little sulkily, “and I’ll be in Dublin the evening after.”
“Humph! this is the eleventh, that will be the thirteenth. Yes; it will just do. Well, Charley, I believe I will entrust you with a letter; but you must promise and vow that you will put it into the penny-post the very evening you arrive, or I’ll not give it to you; for it must be delivered the morning after, or the Lord knows what would happen.”
“You needn’t be afraid, Lucy,” answered her beau; “you know very well”——
“Oh! to be sure I do,” exclaimed she, interrupting him. “I declare I was very near forgetting all that. This evening, then, I’ll send the letter over to you; and now good-bye, and go get ready.”
With the help of the milestones, as Lucy said, he arrived in Dublin on the evening he proposed, and having left his steed at Dycer’s, and seen him carefully made-up, proceeded to the Hibernian, discussed his dinner and a couple of tumblers, and then, for the poor fellow was terribly tired, sank into a slumber, and finally rose into a snore, from which he was aroused by the waiter recommending him to adjourn to his room; a piece of advice which Charley very gratefully followed. Next morning Lucy’s letter rose in judgment against him; there was only one way to atone for his neglect, and that was, to deliver it personally, no matter at what trouble or inconvenience. So, hastily dressing himself, he took the letter out of his valise, and examined the direction. He had his misgivings; it bore for its superscription the name Edward Fitzgerald, Esq. whose place of abode it indicated was number something in Dominick Street. He could not help asking himself what business had Lucy—his Lucy—corresponding with any male member of the human family whatever. Still, as any assertion of his rights in that particular would be rather premature at present, he determined to execute the commission faithfully, since he had undertaken it; but as soon as she became Mrs Malone, if he’d let such a thing occur again, then might he, Charley, be eternally doomed to a place that shall be nameless.
On reaching the domicile of Mr Fitzgerald, and inquiring if he was at home, our friend was ushered into the presence of a most alarmingly spruce young gentleman, six feet high in his stockings, handsome enough to be a handsome man, and with a head of hair that awfully contrasted with the rather carroty wisp which lay between Charley and high heaven. To him, on questioning him fully as to his identity, he delivered the letter, and likewise the speech which he had been composing on the subject all the morning.
“This letter, sir,” quoth Charley, “was entrusted to my care by a very pretty girl, to whom I pledged myself that I would put it in the penny-post last night, but I was so cursedly tired, that, hang me if I ever thought of it; and so, to redeem my pledge, I have come to place it in your hands, Miss Bindon having some reason best known to herself for wishing it should reach you to-day.”
“Miss Bindon, did you say?” exclaimed the young man, looking very much like a personage who had been wakened out of a dream.
“Yes, sir, Miss Lucy Bindon,” answered Charley, and to prevent mistakes he added with rather a significant tone, “and a young lady, by the bye, in whom I take a very especial interest. You understand me?”
“Oh! perfectly,” stammered the young man in answer. “Somebody told me she was going to be married.”
“I don’t know how that may be, sir,” said Charley, with a sort of simpering consciousness; “but this at least I can say, that he’ll be a devilish lucky man who gets her.”
“Yes,” responded Mr Edward Fitzgerald, with a bitter sigh; “she is in truth a beautiful girl. Such animation!”
“And such a fine fortune!” continued Charley, rubbing his hands with triumph.
“Amiable, excellent, fascinating!” said the doleful Mr Fitzgerald; and a pause ensued of most lugubrious silence, during which his eyes were fastened on the letter, seemingly unconscious of the presence of its bearer.
“Excuse me,” said Charley at last; “you are impatient to read it, so I’ll be off. Good morning.”
The young man rose with all the amiability he could summon, and quitted the apartment with him to show him the way.
“Thunder and turf, sir!” ejaculated Charley; “is it out on the skylight you want to send me?” And, certainly, the direction in which the gentleman pointed would have led to some such exit.
“Oh! pardon me,” exclaimed the other, covered with confusion; “I really forgot—your way is down stairs, not up.”
“All right—all right,” chuckled Charley to himself as he sprang down, taking a flight at each bound; “this is some fellow that she used to care for before she saw me; and now, to have every thing fair and straight, the gipsy has sent him his dismissal in form. Poor devil! he seems disposed to take it to heart very much. Right—right! Best to be off with the old love before you be on with the new, as the song says. I declare I like her the better for it; and to save the poor fellow’s feelings, she never even hinted to me what the letter was about.” And laying this flattering unction to his soul, he went about his business in the best of good humour with himself and all the world besides.
“Well, Charley,” said Lucy to him on his return to the country, “I know beforehand you forgot all about my letter; so give it back to me, if you have not lost it. I should not like my billet-doux to remain with the rest of your good intentions; give it back to me now, like a good fellow, and I’ll forgive you. It’s not your fault, but your misfortune.”
“I am happy to tell you,” answered he, “that all your forebodings have proved groundless; and I’m sure, Lucy, that, giddy and careless as you may pretend to be, it will give you satisfaction to know that I perfectly approve of your conduct.”
Lucy, a little puzzled by this gratifying intimation, received it in silence, making a low curtsey in reply, as in duty bound.
“Yes, Lucy,” continued he, “it has made you dearer than ever to me.”
“Will you allow me to ask you one question, Mr Charles Malone?” demanded the puzzled lady, “and pray be intelligible if possible in your reply. Did you put my letter in the penny-post?”
“No.”
“I thought as much—and pray what have you done with it?”
“You will understand all my allusions,” replied Charley tenderly, “when I tell you I delivered it myself into the hands of this Mr Fitzgerald.”
“What! but he didn’t know who you were, did he?” exclaimed she, in utter dismay.
“I rather think he guessed,” was the sly reply: “and from the manner in which he spoke of you, I was able to guess something too; but you needn’t blush now; we’ll say no more about it. Such things will occur in the best regulated families.”
“Spoke of me!” said Lucy, in a low and frightened tone; “and had you the assurance to mention my name?”
“Why, why not? I hope there was nothing particular in the letter. I thought”——
“Oh, you odious blundering wretch!” she exclaimed, interrupting him, and bursting into tears; “it was nothing but an innocent, harmless valentine; and now look at all the mischief you have put into it.”
It was with a sorrowing heart that Charley wended his way homeward that evening, after enduring such a mortifying discovery, and the disagreeable consequences entailed thereon, and putting in extreme jeopardy his chance of the incensed Lucy, and her very desirable three thousand appurtenances; but as he passed the little inn where temporary sojourners in B—— were made as comfortable as the nature of the circumstances would permit, he caught a glimpse of the figure of a man standing in the hall, closely muffled and enveloped in that most successful of all disguises which a gentleman can assume, a rough pee-jacket. Could it be? it was decidedly like him; but what could bring him there? Nay, by Jove! it was the identical Mr Edward Fitzgerald himself, arrived, most unaccountably, at the very nick of time, to explain to Lucy how inadvertently her name had been alluded to, and thus get him out of the scrape. Led by this gleam of hope, he hurried up to the stranger, and eagerly claimed his recognition by seizing his hand without ceremony, and welcoming him to B——.
“Down about business, I presume?” quoth Charley.
“No—yes—exactly,” stammered the surprised new-comer.
“Egad, you can do my business at all events,” continued Charley. “I suppose you know by this time what a cursed mistake I made the other day about Miss Bindon’s letter. Oh, you may laugh; but faith it has been no laughing matter to me. However, you can set all to rights, if you choose, by writing a few lines, saying how it occurred, and that it was quite an accident, and all that. Do now, like a good fellow, and I’ll just run back with it, and make my peace.”
“You mean,” observed Fitzgerald, “that I should write to Miss Bindon. My dear fellow, I shall be delighted; but of course you’ll deliver it under the rose. It wouldn’t be the thing, you know, to let the old lady into the secret;” and laughing heartily, and displaying the most laudable alacrity to extricate Charley from his dilemma, he led the way into the parlour, and having procured writing materials, sat down, wrote a few hurried lines, which he said would fully explain the whole occurrence and set it in a proper light, sealed his note, and delivered it to the anxious swain for whose behoof he had penned it, and who hastened away with his prize so quickly, that before the ink was dry, he placed it in the reluctant hands of the still pouting Lucy. “There!” exclaimed he, triumphantly; “since you won’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe that. Now, pray don’t throw it into the fire,” continued he, as a very unambiguous motion of the young lady seemed to imply was her intention; “only read it, and if that don’t satisfy you, I’ll say you’re hard to be pleased, and that’s all.”
Moved by this powerful appeal, Lucy cast her eye on the billet; a strange sort of emotion passed across her face, and she abruptly broke the seal, and proceeded to peruse the contents, while Charley applied himself, with equal zeal, to the perusal of her countenance. In it he could read, first, surprise, extreme and undisguised; secondly, confusion; and lastly, something undefinable, which at all events was not displeasure, for she concluded by looking fixedly at him for a moment or two, and then yielding to a most unladylike fit of laughter.
“Well, Lucy, is all right?” asked Charley, delighted at this demonstration.
“All, all,” she responded. “Why, Charley, you must be canonized for your punctuality in the delivery of letters. But remember, not a word to mamma—mum, Charley. And now be off, lest she should come down, and ask what brought you back.”
“But, Lucy,” interrupted the ardent lover, “now that’s all settled, I think you might”——
“Well, here—take it—anything to get rid of you.”
“Oh, Lucy! Lucy!”
Next morning terrible was the hubbub in the household of Mrs Bindon. Miss Lucy was nowhere to be had; in fact, had eloped with a gentleman who had arrived at the inn the evening before, though by what means she could have communicated with him, or he with her, must, as the story-books say, for ever remain a mystery, unless we are to suppose the gentleman had the audacity to make Charley the bearer of his proposals in his exculpatory letter; at least, one to the following purport was found in her room next morning:—
“Dearest Lucy—So you have not forgotten me! It is needless to say I know you to be the writer of the sweet valentine I received last week. It has awakened new hopes in me—hopes that I have ventured here to put to the test. In a word, will you be mine?—if so, we have nothing to hope from your mother. We must elope this night, and I shall accordingly have a carriage in readiness near your door until morning. Pray excuse the bearer all his mistakes, and this last particularly.—Ever your own
E. F.”
The dowager recognised the initials, but all the rest was heathen Greek to her. “Oh, Lucy! Lucy!” she exclaimed, in the bitterness of her grief, “did I ever think I was rearing you up to see you make a man of the house, at last, out of an attorney’s skip!”
A. M’C.