CHAPTER XXI. MY TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY.
“Cats. Cæsar shall forth: the things that threatened me.
Ne’er looked but on my back; when they shall see
The face of Cæsar—they are vanished.”
“Ham. Oh most pernicious woman!”
“‘3d Mur. Tis he—
2d Mur. Stand to’t.”
Shakespeare.
W hen I met Isidora in her mountain home, her graceful person, aided by manners particularly naive and gentle, had fascinated me, and taught me, for the first time, to feel the influence of love. Hers was the artless beauty that man never gazes on unmoved—the coldest heart would own its power—and mine at once admitted it. But when a closer intimacy banished the timidity which a secluded life and conventual education naturally produced—when she looked no longer on me as a stranger, expressed her opinions freely, and conversed without restraint—I found her gifted with intelligence beyond what so young a life could warrant, and a spirit, in ordinary events, mild, gentle, and endearing, but one, if necessity required, capable of that devoted fortitude, which so frequently, in pain and poverty, raises woman superior to misfortune, and distances immeasurably the boasted heroism of man. I was now, by the permission of Mr. Hartley, constantly in the presence of his daughter. At his table a cover was reserved for me, and I was an inmate of a neighbouring hotel. In the various places visited by strangers to the metropolis, I daily accompanied Isidora; for in concerns of deeper interest her father seemed entirely engaged. I sailed with her on the river—I rode with her in the parks. Is it then to be wondered at that boyish fancy ripened into a strong and endearing passion?—one that no secondary impression could afterwards efface, and which, like the star of hope, brightened the darkest hour of my career, and finally crowned success with that best benison of heaven—woman’s love.
On the third evening after my unsuccessful attempt to effect a reconciliation with Mr. Clifford, we had strolled westward, and, returning through St. James’s Park, sate down to rest upon a bench beside the Serpentine. In the story of my life it was a day never to be forgotten; for I had told Isidora what could not have been a secret, and, amid tears and blushes, she had owned that to her father she could give now-only a divided heart. He who has loved at twenty, and excited a kindred passion in the object of his regard, can only fancy what I felt. The world seemed strewn with roses—the sky without a cloud. Was not Isidora mine? and rich in woman’s love, what else was to be wished for? Alas! how many trials were before me, ere that haven of happiness was won!
I mentioned before, Mr. Hartley’s business was so engrossing, that from breakfast time we rarely saw him until he returned late to dinner. The evening was closing, and the chimes of St. Martin’s steeple warned us that we should resume our walk. The bench on which we had been sitting was directly in front of a clump of trees; and on moving a pace or two, we perceived, for the first time, that a tall and singular looking woman was standing immediately beside us, although until we had risen the shrubs effectually concealed her. Her figure and attitude were graceful, and the outline of the countenance fine—with a complexion so dark, and eyes so brilliant, that they at once betrayed a gipsy origin. She was past the middle age—but when a girl, she no doubt possessed the beauty for which that singular race are so remarkable. She regarded me with fixed attention; her eyes glancing slightly at my fair companion, and then settling upon mine with a stealthy expression of inquiry. We attempted to pass her, but she raised her arm, and signed that we should remain.
“What do ye want, good woman?” I said, as I offered her some silver.
“Not money,” was her reply, and she pushed back the hand I had extended. “I would speak with you, and speak with you alone.”
“With me! You can have no business with a stranger”—
“With strangers I have none. With you I have important business,” returned the gipsy.
“I am unknown to you, my friend.” She smiled incredulously, and then peering sharply at my face, she measured me with a glance from head to foot.
“Yes, I could not be mistaken—the air, the height, the figure—all, all, are similar. The same firm step and haughty carriage; ay, and the eye and lip too are his; the rest, the softer features of his mother.”
Isidora, startled at the wild attitude and address of the wanderer, clung closely to my arm for protection. The gipsy noticed it.
“Lady, from me you have nothing to dread. I may not be able to serve you, and who would injure you? Give me your hand. Nay, fear not.”
“Pshaw!” said I, “we have no faith in fortune-telling and I smiled.
“That smile too is his father’s. Come, lady, let me but look one moment.”
I pressed Isidora to comply with the gipsy’s request; and, with a smile, she presented her hand to the fortune-teller. The latter scanned the lines attentively, and then whispered something in my companion’s ear, but in a voice so low, that to me it was perfectly inaudible. Its effect upon Isidora was striking. In a moment a burning blush suffused her cheeks, and eyes, turned before upon the sybil in playful expectation, were instantly cast upon the ground. The wanderer smiled.
“Nay, lady,” she said, “take not what I have told you as any proof of skill; a boy who saw half what I did unperceived would readily have guessed that secret. One look more. Your love will end prosperously; but the time is hidden from me. Trials and disappointments interfere, but prudence and patience will overcome them. May you be happy! It would be, in sooth, a pity if sorrow should dim so sweet an eye, or cloud a brow so beautiful. And now, to see what fate designs for you, sir.”
The kindly tone of voice in which she conveyed her wishes for Isidora’s happiness of course had its full influence on me, and I freely presented the hand she desired—but still a sceptic smile accompanied the offer, and showed that in palmistry I was an unbeliever. She affected not to notice it, but proceeded with her mystic examination.
“Well,” I said, laughing, “what has fortune in reserve for me?”
“Much that I can see, and more that is wrapped in mystery.”
“Proceed.”
“I see present danger, followed by perilous adventure. The end, however, looks happy.”
“The danger,” I exclaimed; “whence and from whom?”
“The source I see; the time’s uncertain.”
“Pshaw! this is mere folly—some proof. Give me this, or I shall say your art is all speculation on the common results of life, and founded on chance of circumstances.”
“Ask, and I’ll answer you.”
“My name?” I inquired.
“Hector O’Halloran.”
“Well, I was not aware you knew me. That knowledge is easily acquired. My profession?”
“Your father’s. Am I right?”
I bowed.
“What else do you require from me?” said the woman.
Isidora had turned pale; for the readiness with which each question had been answered, seemed to infer that the gipsy really possessed the intelligence she boasted.
“Come,” I said, “one question more, and that if answered shall make me a true believer;—tell me my age!”
“Well—let me think a moment,” she returned, and placing her open hand across her forehead, she seemed for a few moments to tax her memory, as if engaged in mental calculations.
“Ay, that was the year,” she muttered; then, turning to me, she coolly answered, “On Thursday next you will be twenty.”
She paused; and the surprise visible on my countenance announced to Isidora that the answer was correct.
“And now, one word before we part;” and she laid her hand upon my shoulder—“Hector O’Halloran, beware! or your twentieth birthday will be as bloody as your first.—— Before we part, give me one promise.”
“Name it,” I replied.
“When I require you to meet me—when a writing with these marks attached to it, shall be placed within your hand”—and she gave me a scroll—“will you obey the order?”
I answered boldly in the affirmative.
“‘Tis well. Though my summons come in storm, and darkness, and at midnight, as you value life, obey it. Though beauty smiles, and music charms, leave all when that mystic signature is presented.”
Isidora and I turned our eyes on the scroll. It contained only a couple of initials—but annexed was a singular hieroglyphic, representing a heart perforated with a dagger. I smiled at the device, while Isidora became deadly pale. The wanderer saw the colour leave her cheek; and with a gentleness of voice and manner intended to remove alarm, she thus addressed my fair companion:—
“Lady, fear nothing; all will yet be well,—and by courage and caution danger shall be arrested. Go, and God bless you! Remember what I have said and you have promised. You have deadly enemies; but, Hector O’Halloran, you have one devoted friend. Ay, and humble as she is, trust to her; and if she do not save, she’ll die in the attempt.”
Ere the words were spoken, the gipsy had vanished behind the bushes, leaving Isidora and myself in marvellous astonishment at a scene equally unexpected and incomprehensible.
When we reached home, Mr. Hartley was waiting for us; and after dinner, when tête-à-tête, I recounted our adventure in the Park. He listened attentively to the detail, and asked me many questions, to which, however, I could give no satisfactory replies.
“I am at a loss,” he said, “to fathom this singular affair. The woman could have no object in creating an unnecessary alarm, and yet her communication was so vague, that one cannot even guess what the danger is, or from what quarter it may be expected. Still her caution is not to be despised, and we must be upon our guard, until it pleases your swarthy friend to be more explicit than she has been. One course must be pursued. We must keep strangers at a distance, and look at all as enemies.” He took the note I had received from Mr. Clifford on the evening after our interview, and read it carefully.
“It is his signature indubitably,” he murmured. “These well-remembered characters are not to be mistaken. Had he received you kindly—had he evinced the slightest symptom of abated displeasure when you addressed him—and did a hope remain that time could mitigate his callous feelings towards an erring child—I would, in that case, have suspected that in the monk you had that secret enemy of whom you have been warned to beware. But no—the Jesuit is secure; the dupe is all his own. He will be contented with rendering all future attempts to gain the old man’s presence unavailing. That he can effect, and more would be unnecessary. To me, the occurrence is involved in mystery too deep to be even guessed at, and it seems one that time only can unravel.”
Although to the amatory effusions which reached me by every post I was cold as St. Senanus, when he was so barbarously virtuous as to warn a single lady off his premises at midnight, still to woman’s fascination I was not altogether insensible. By singular accident, I had encountered a girl of extraordinary beauty in my walks; and though her demeanour was modest and retiring, I still fancied that I did not pass her by unnoticed. She was apparently under eighteen; and to the sweetest face imaginable, united a faultless figure. Her mourning dress was simple and becoming; and her general appearance indicated an humble respectability. To have insinuated aught against the constancy of my passion for Isidora, should be, as Lord Ogleby says, “by all the laws of love, death to the offender,” but still, when we passed each other in the street, I found myself involuntarily look round. Once, I imagined that the pretty incognita directed a furtive glance at me; and then, blushing at detection, she bent her eyes upon the ground, and walked hastily on, as if prohibiting any attempt on my part to address her, had such been my intention. But by a strange accident, the introduction that propriety forbade, chance effected.
My birth-day came. I thought upon the sybil’s warning in the Park, and I confess that it was anything but an agreeable reminiscence. I was not afraid—for what had I to fear? It was “an air-drawn dagger” that impended; but still I was far from being quite at ease. The day was gloomy; a fog obscured the sun; the dull atmosphere would damp the lightest spirits; I felt its influence on mine; and when I reached St. Paul’s, the gipsy’s warning haunted my memory, and it seemed to announce emphatically a coming evil. Her words rang in my ear, and I thought I heard Her again repeat, “Hector O’Halloran, beware! or your twentieth birth-day will be as bloody as your first.” I mused upon the prophecy—“The ides of March were come.” Well, the sybil said that courage and caution would overcome the threatening danger. Both should be exercised; and a few brief hours would fulfil or falsify the augury.
These sombre thoughts were suddenly interrupted, for directly before me, and scarcely distant a dozen yards, I recognised the graceful figure of the fair incognita, whom fortune, good or evil, appeared determined to throw across my path continually.
Should I address her as I passed? I wished to do so, but hesitated. Suddenly a man hurried rudely along, and pushing with violence against the pretty unknown, she staggered a few paces and would have fallen on the flagway, had I not sprang forward and caught her in my arms. The scoundrel who had done the mischief, dreading the consequences of his brutality, hastened away, and was speedily lost in the fog.
Fortunately, a tavern was immediately at hand. I supported her in; obtained a private sitting-room, the assistance of the females of the house, and the incognita was speedily recovered. We were then left alone. I received her warmest acknowledgments for my kindness; and thus encouraged, I pressed my inquiries to learn who she was, and, with the timidity of a girl unaccustomed to hold converse with a stranger, by degrees I learned the fair one’s history.
She was the orphan of a soldier. Her father, a lieutenant in the line, had fallen at the assault of Badajos; her mother, years before was dead; and her only living relation, an aged aunt, who, from infirmities, was unable to leave the house. They enjoyed a trifling independence—one that required careful management to render it sufficient to meet moderate wants, and maintain a respectable position in society. Hence she accounted for the necessity imposed upon one so young of appearing frequently in public.
Over the simple story of a life, she threw a shadowing of romance that strongly interested me. In alluding to the narrowness of her means, my fair acquaintance mentioned circumstances which could not but engage my sympathy. Her aunt had fallen into the hands of a grinding solicitor, and been plundered accordingly; for how could an infirm old woman obtain redress, when opposed to a satellite of the law? Her father had demands upon the Government when he fell in his country’s cause; but with no interest to support it, the claim was made and rejected. No wonder, then, that Irish chivalry at once prompted me to offer myself her champion, and I expressed a strong desire to visit her aged relative. With some hesitation, she acceded to the request, and named, for a reason I have forgotten, a late hour that evening for an interview.
Were I asked what had excited this curiosity regarding the history of a stranger, and with what objects I sought a closer acquaintance with the incognita, I could not answer the question. To Isidora my allegiance remained unshaken; and yet some secret impulse urged me to cultivate an intimacy, which prudence should have interdicted, and every bond of love forbade.
The day appeared interminable. It wore away at last; and the hour drew nigh when I was to meet my young incognita. I told Isidora of my morning adventure; but I suppressed the fact, that an evening interview was to follow it. I feared that Mr. Hartley, from the habitual suspicion with which he scrutinized every transaction of life that bore a questionable feature, would not approve of my becoming patron to a girl so pretty and unprotected as the soldier’s orphan, and therefore I kept that intention to myself. Some business called him out—my mistress complained of head-ache, and retired—the clock struck nine—I rang for my cloak and stick—for of late I never went abroad after dark without a stout shillelah—and, as I was leaving the room, Dominique placed a sealed paper in my hand, which he said had been just left with the porter by a person who disappeared the moment it was delivered.
The billet was short; and the curious device attached to it, announced that it came from the gipsy. It ran thus:—
“Meet me on the right-hand side of Blackfriars Bridge, leading from the City, precisely at midnight. The crisis is at hand! I wish to prepare you for it! Fail not!”
I read the writing twice, and determined to arm myself well and obey the summons punctually. Mr. Hartley was from home. No doubt he would appear ere the hour of meeting arrived, and I waited his return for half an hour, but in vain. The evening wore heavily away—I thought of my appointment with the fair incognita—there would be time enough to keep it, and it would fill up an hour agreeably. I left the hotel, and walked briskly towards the place where the soldier’s orphan told me she would be in waiting.
I reached the “trysting place,” and stopped before the entrance of a narrow lane, which the lofty houses on either side rendered still more gloomy. That mass of masonry, St. Paul’s, flung its deep shadow over the space beneath it; and there I halted, looking towards the opening between the houses, from which I expected that my incognita would present herself. I was not kept long in waiting. A slight dark figure flitted past, and a soft voice asked, in well-remembered accents, “Is that you?” It was the soldier’s daughter. She took my arm; and under her guidance, I entered the gloomy alley from which I had seen her issue.
But I must pause. ‘Where was my foster brother? and how was that worthy personage employed? He, whose fortunes I have described as being so strangely united with mine—where was he now, when the crisis of my fate was coming? Stay, gentle reader. Leave me for a few minutes with the young lady—remember, the expedition was conducted on platonic principles—and let us inquire what befel Mark Antony O’Toole, and his excellent ally.
During the first week that Mark Antony and the rat-catcher favoured the modern Babylon with their company, no adventure of particular interest had fallen to the lot of either. As both these excellent personages enjoyed the perfect use of their limbs, their peregrinations were numerous, and every interesting object the metropolis contained, was visited from Tyburn to the Tower. In these agreeable excursions, as yet no opening to future fortune had been discovered. It is true, they had seen the world, and made sundry valuable acquaintances; and in return for blue-ruin and heavy-wet, received excellent advice, and also, a special invitation to attend the obsequies of a lamented gentlewoman, who had shuffled off this mortal coil in a back attic, two pair up, in Leg-lane. As this last token of respect to departed worth was to be strictly private and genteel, the sticks were taken from the visitors on the first landing-place as they arrived, and deposited in the ruins of a clock-case, by a man with a wooden leg, who attended funerals as chief mourner, and balls as master of ceremonies—and by this useful functionary Mark and his friend were ushered into the apartment, where all that was mortal of Mistress Ellinor Malone was lying in state.
The company were already assembled, amounting to some thirty of both sexes, all friends and relations of the deceased, and natives of the Emerald Isle—and nothing could be more imposing than the general effect which the chamber of death presented. Mistress Malone was laid out upon a bench, with a frilled cap upon her head, and a plate of snuff upon her bosom. On one side, stood a three-legged table supporting an unequal number of lights; and on the other, there was a goodly supply of gin, porter, and tobacco. Around the room the company were seated, each gentleman supporting a lady on his knee; and, to judge from appearances, a more united company had never been collected in St. Giles’s.
Being the latest arrivals from “the ould country,” the ratcatcher and his young friend obtained particular attention—and on being presented by the single-legged gentleman, they were received, in person, by the disconsolate survivor.
“Mister Macgreal, ye’r kindly welcome—and the same, to you, Mister O’Toole—we’ll brook ye’r name, for it’s a good one! I’m in grate afliixskin, as you may parsave—but God’s will be done;” and Mr. Malone crossed himself. “Patsey Doyle, fill the gintlemen a cropper ach—and put a drop in the bottom of a glass for myself, to drink to better acquaintance.”
The glasses being duly filled and emptied, Mr. Malone feelingly continued.
“Och, boys, af ye but knew my loss. There ye lie, Nelly! could as a crimpt cod; an when ye were sober—to be sure it was but seldom—the divil blister the better wife in St. Giles’s—an that’s a big word. Come, gintlemen, take a pinch out of respect for the dead—Lord rest her—amen!—and then draw a sate, an make yerselves agreeable. Patsey Doyle, there’s a lemon-box in the corner—fix it, avournene, for the gintilmen—an now, Mistress Braddigen, may be yee’d obleege us wid a song.”
The lady, an agreeable exception to professional melodists who never sing when people want them, immediately complied with the request of Mr. Malone; and having, as a necessary preliminary, removed all bronchial obstructions with a johny of “cream of the valley,” she executed with feeling and effect that beautiful ballad, intituled “The night before Larry was stretched”—and the well-merited plaudits of a delighted audience had just rewarded the exertions of the fair singer, when two fresh arrivals were added to the company.
The visitors were of the softer sex. One, was a stout gentlewoman of a certain age, whom he of the solitary leg announced as Mrs. Bunce—and the second, a very pretty young one, was also introduced as Mrs. Spicer. The fosterer and his friend, being the only gentlemen who could afford accommodation to the new comers, the master of ceremonies deposited the stout lady upon the knees of Shemus Kkua, while to Mark Antony, the honour “of bearing the weight” of Mrs. Spicer was entrusted.
The discernment evinced in the collection of the company would have been in itself a sufficient guarantee for its general respectability; and hence, the intercourse, on all sides, was easy and unreserved.
“‘Pon my sowl! a ginteeler party I hav’nt been to these six months,” observed Mrs. Spicer to the fosterer, after she had turned down a flash of max to ‘a better acquaintance,’—“and Malone—Lord comfort him in sorra!—shows the best of respect to his desaste lady.—I hope there won’t be any ruction the night, and that the wake will go off agreeable. The Connaught stockin’-man, who was bate at Phil Casey’s ball a Friday night, died this evenin’ in Guy’s Hospital. He left his death, they say, on Playbe Davis, for hitten him, wid the smoothin’-iron, when down.”
“I was rather afeard, Sally, dear,” observed Mrs. Bunce to Mrs. Spicer, “that cross ould file, yer husband, wouldn’t let ye out the night.”
“And not a toe would I have got over the trashold ather,” returned Mrs. Spicer, “only something he heard druv him into the Minories, to ask after the carakter of a chap who came to lodge with us last Monday. By gogstay, if the ould ruffin comes home early, and finds me out—may be there won’t be a purty too-roo kicked up? Well, the divil may care—as Punch said when he missed mass!” Then, in a lower tone, she addressed herself to the fosterer.
“He’s so gallows jealous,” said the lady, “that one hasn’t the life of a dog. He, and his other wives”—(for it would appear that in the connubial line Mr. Spicer had dealt largely)—“were always murderin’ one another—ay, and before the beak every week, and sometimes twice too. How, I have been married to him two months come Saturday, and sorra mark he could show agen me but one black eye—for I can bare a dale of provokashin—and that he brought upon himself too.” She then continued to remark, that Mr. Spicer’s temper was but indifferent, and when he had “the cross glass in” a saint wouldn’t stand him. He had also “a most aggravatin’ tongue,”—and that evening, in alluding to a former acquaintanceship which had existed between herself and a drummer in the Guards, he used terms of so little delicacy, that a mutual interchange of compliments resulted—Mrs. Spicer, receiving the contents of a pewter pint, which token of connubial endearment was as promptly acknowledged with the boot-jack, by which it appeared an upper tooth had been effectually removed without the assistance of a dentist—a loss, on Mr. Spicer’s part, ill to bear, as it was the only specimen of natural ivory he possessed.
In such light and pleasing conversation an hour passed unheeded—for minutes winged with pleasure fly unnoticed. Harmony prevailed; and, by a philosophic effort, Mr. Malone forgot his loss, and at the request of the company, and assisted by a violin accompaniment of the gentleman with the wooden-leg, he chaunted “The Groves of Blarney.” It is right to observe that, in the selection of the song, an affectionate deference to the taste of the deceased was observed, the said “Groves” being an especial favourite of his departed companion. If ever wake proved pleasant, Mrs. Malone’s bade fair to be so. All were happy—Mrs. Bunee declared the ratcatcher an agreeable man—and the sooner that Mr. Spicer looked after his truant spouse the better—for, were the truth known, Mark Antony was making a wild inroad on a heart that hitherto, had not “loved wisely, but too well.”
“A change came o’er the spirit of the” night—the door unclosed—and a square-built man, with a grizzled head and most infelicitous aspect, was seen in the door-way, fixing a basilisk glance on “that fair frail one” who rested on the fosterer’s knee. An interjectional remark from Mrs. Spicer left the identity of the personage indubitable—as she observed, “That’s the ould divil, and no mistake—and maybe there won’t be a reglar shindy!”
Though the gentleman paused in the doorway, he lost no time in opening the conversation.
“So ye’r there, Sally Spicer!” and the remainder of the sentence was couched in language which the Court Journal would pronounce irregular.
“And where else should I be, ye ould, batter’d-out apology for a Christian?”
“Come out o’ that—tramp home—an may be ye wont catch it!”
“Can ye spare another tooth convaniently?” responded his rebellious helpmate.
“I’m waitin’ for ye, Sal!” returned the elderly gentleman, with a mysterious crook of the finger.
[Original]
“Ye may go to Bath,” replied the fair one, “and if that does’nt agree with your constitution, why go to ———” and she named a locality of much higher temperature.
“I say, Sall, ye vont go, vont ye?” and Mr. Spicer made an advance three steps nearer to the lemon box.
“Not the length of that nose of yours, and its the longest and ugliest in the room. If it would’nt be an impertinent question, Mr. Spicer, what did ye do wid ye’r other nine wives?—By gogstay—if all the neighbours say is true, Bluebeard was a gentleman to ye!”
The remark was an unhappy one. A lady, whom Mr. Spicer in earlier life had honoured with his hand, had been found dead under suspicions circumstances, which rendered it a doubtful point to determine whether her sudden exit was attributable to gin or strangulation. In consequence, Mr. S. had to enter into a lengthened explanation at the Old Bailey; and “having the luck of thousands,” the jury gave him the benefit of a doubt, and finally left it upon gin. The allusion, therefore, touched rather a tender point, and hurried matters to a crisis.
Mr. Spicer sprang forward, and seized his lady by the arm—and Mark Antony, retaining the other, put in a decided remonstrance. In Scott’s parlance—
“Few were the words, and stern, and high,
That mark’d the foemen’s jealous hate;
For question fierce, and proud reply,
Gave signal soon of dire debate.”
Mr. Spicer, discommoding himself of his coat and neckcloth, made a sporting offer to fight for five pounds, which Mr. O’Toole accepted, only making the consideration love, and not money—a proposition that was received with general applause.
To all official accounts of modern battles, “preliminary observations” are prefixed. In early life, Mr. Spicer had been professional—but, obtaining what he considered a safer line of business, he abandoned the ring, to repose himself under the shade of his own laurels. Blinded by the green monster, he reckoned a little too much upon his former science, forgetting the odds that youth and superior size had placed against him. Both parties had their backers.—“Now, old-un, mind your dodge!” exclaimed the supporters of Mr. Spicer—while the admirers of Mark Antony, recommending the “young-un to be awake,” added, “that the ould file was a deep dodger;” and intimated that it would be advisable to “look sharp to his left daddle, for that was his nasty one.” One other appeal—and a last one, came from the corner; “For the sake of Jasus, to keep the skrimmage as far from the corps as they could.” The admonition was the cry of wisdom, and it was disregarded accordingly.
A briefer conflict never disappointed a sporting assembly. The artful dodge, on which Mr. Spicer depended, failed; and in trying his left, he received a per contra favour that brought the battle to a close. A flush hit sent him into the corner with astonishing velocity; and in his rapid transit, he took with him not only the master of the ceremonies, but also, the mortal remains of Mistress Malone, and the whole apparatus on which the defunct lady had been extended.
At this appalling catastrophe, the outbreak of the chief mourner was responded to by “the cry of women.” The single-legged professor declared his ruin complete, that instrument from which he discoursed such excellent music being “in smithereens,” while it was exceedingly doubtful, whether that Mr. Spicer was not defunct as Mrs. Malone. When the first uproar had partially subsided, the corpse was lifted by the ladies—the polygamist raised by his friends and allies—and the fiddler allowed to regain his perpendicular as he best could—while the admirers of Mark Antony, after eulogizing his pluck, and paying a delicate compliment to his powers as “a punisher,” hinted that it would be prudent to withdraw, that it might be ascertained if Mr. Spicer had been gathered to his fathers, or whether he was only “kilt, not killed and, finally, until the mortal remains of Mrs. Malone should be duly reported in statu quo ante bellum,” which, being translated, means “stretched genteelly as before the shindy had occurred.”
To the ratcatcher the prudence of an immediate retreat was manifest; and while general attention was divided between “the dying and the dead,” the fosterer and his friend quietly levanted, leaving, what a few minutes before had been an harmonious assemblage, in most admired disorder.
The rapidity with which Irish rows are commenced and concluded is proverbial. Under the directions of a sailor, the wreck was cleared; and Mr. Spicer, whose advent had brought on the battle and “crossed the obsequies, and true-love’s rights,” was declared to be still a living man; and being resuscitated by gin and neighbourly attention, he was once more committed to the care of his gentle helpmate. The dear departed one again received
“The latest favour at the hands
That, living, honoured her;”
and the wake being restored to pristine solemnity, the afflicted husband resumed his seat, vented his sorrows in soft melody, and again gratified the company with a song. What were the after-proceedings at Mr. Malone’s evening party we are not prepared to say; but no doubt some notice touching the wind-up of the symposium, might be discovered by the curious in the police chronicles of the time.
On the following afternoon, the funeral of Mrs. Malone was correctly “performed;” and on the same evening on which I had made my entree on the world, that lamented gentlewoman bade it a last adieu. The mourners separated at the grave-yard, each to return to his respective vocations; and the captain and the fosterer retired to the Fox and Goose, to deliberate on affairs of paramount importance. The question was one of ways and means; and, as it would appear, the subject had not been considered until circumstances imperatively required that financial arrangements should be entered on.
“What the devil’s to be done?” observed the ratcatcher. “We’re down to thirty shillings between us—and a week’s rent due to-morrow.”
“I thought, before now,” returned the fosterer, with a sigh, “that something would have turned up—but I’m afraid, copteeine, we settled in the wrong quarter of the town for any thing but love, drink, and fighting.”
“Feaks,” said the ratcatcher, “and I’m pretty nearly of the same opinion. Mark, jewel—what if we step over to the other side of the city—and may be we might hear of something that one could turn his hand to?”
“It’s too late this evening,” replied the fosterer.
“Not at all, Mark—it’s scarcely gone eight.”
“But Shemus, the truth is, I have a bit of an engagement.”
“Where, and what to do?” inquired the ratcatcher, suspiciously.
“Why,” said the fosterer, “just as they sodded Mrs. Malone, a girl slipped this letter into my hand.”
“What is it about?”
“Nothing, but an invitation to tea.”
“Taa!” ejaculated the captain, horror-struck. “If ye take to taa-drinkin’, Hector, avourneeine, its over with ye! What destroyed Dick Macknamara but these accursed taa-parties? May the devil smother the first inventer of the same!—And where are ye invited to?” The fosterer, instead of answering the inquiry, presented the billet he had received in the grave-yard to the honest ratcatcher, who, with some difficulty having managed to decypher the writing, read the contents, which were as follow:—
“leg lane, thursday, six o’clok.
“dear Sir,—i was gratley Consarnt you shood get in Trubbil on my Acount last Nite, and the Naybors alow ye Behavd lik a Reglar gentleman. Spicer’s gon to the Sittay on bisnis that’il keep him All evenin’—So if you Cood make it Convanient to slip in fair an asey About 8 o’clok, wee wood have a Cup of taa, an’ sum Agreeabel con-versashin. The Favir of yer Compnay will grateley Obleege,
“Yours to Comand,
“Sarah Spicer.”
“P. S.—For the Seak of Geesus, don’t let aney body no Nothin’ at the Fox and Gose—they’r’ Sure to split, an’ no mistake. If Mister Magrale wood sit in the wee Windy next the Door of the Fox, and the divell druv Spicer horn, he’d be sure to see the oul screw Turnin’ the corner, and have Time to give us the offis.
‘My Pen is Bad, my ink is pale,
But my Hart too you will niver fail.’
“Your Lovin’ friend, S.— S —.”
“n.b.—You’l Fine the door onley shut too—Push, an’ it will Opin.
“Yours, as Before.
“Too Mister Otool, ecc. &c. &c. &c.”
“You would not be mad enough to go,” said the captain, as he returned Mrs. Spicer’s flattering invitation.
“And how can I get over it?” inquired the fosterer.
“Now mark my words—for you’re bent on it, I see,” continued Shemus Rhua—“your taa-drinkin’ will end in trouble. They say here, that Spicer’s house is notorious for harbouring the most desperate characters in the Dials. If you’re caught—no fair play like the wake—but you’ll be set on by half a score, out and out, murdered, and no one to assist you. Mark, astore—stay where ye are!”
But, like his greater namesake, Mark Antony, led by Dan Cupid, seemed determined to run blindly to destruction; and, disregarding the warnings of the ratcatcher, he resolved
“To love again, and be again undone”—
and accordingly departed for the domicile of Mr. Spicer.
Shemus Rhua, when left alone, ensconced himself in the casement described in the lady’s letter, as “the wee windy next the door,” to take out-post duty for the evening, and secure the fosterer against surprise. Full of dark forebodings, he recalled to memory the divers misfortunes which had befallen his unlucky protegee, Dick Macnamara, and all were clearly attributable to his unfortunate predilection for drinking tea; and therefore, that Mark Antony’s visit to Mrs. Spicer would prove disastrous, he fatally anticipated. Between every blast of the dhudheeine, he turned a suspicious eye to the corner of the street from which danger might have been expected, and proved himself thus invaluable as a videt, as he had been prudent as a counsellor.
The door of Mr. Spicer’s mansion was exactly in the state that the lady had described it—and, yielding to his push, the fosterer found himself in the presence of the lady.
Aware that time was valuable, Mrs. Spicer, after mutual wishes of good health had been ratified by a glass of rum, proceeded at once to business. She hinted at the infelicity of her marriage—and expressed her determination to effect a divorce according to the forms of St. Giles, by which the tedious formalities of law are avoided, and no necessity exists for troubling the House of Peers. Of course, she must, as a prudent woman, provide herself with a future protector; and, in brief terms, she confessed the secret of her love, and tendered her hand and fortune to the safe custody of Mr. O’Toole.
How much soever the fosterer might have been flattered into a temporary flirtation by the declared preference of a pretty woman, still, true to the cantatrice and plighted faith, he declined the offer. But Mrs. Spicer was not easily to be refused; and considering that charms might do much, but money more, she added that inducement. Taking a key from her bosom, she proceeded to unlock a strong cupboard built into the Avail of the apartment, and, from external appearances, formed for a place of security.
“This,” she said, “is the place the ould fellow keeps his cash in—and may be ye’ll be after askin’, how I came by the key?—Feaks, an’ I’ll tell ye.—You see, Spicer used to get mixed when any of the lodgers would stand the liker—and we had a cracksman over-head, and he was so smart a young man, and so obligin’! Well, I picks the ould file’s pocket, an’ he blind drunk; and, before he woke again, Sam Parkins had fitted this one to the lock. Poor Sam!—he was a spicy cove not like the dark sneaking body-snatcher that came after him.‘Gad, I’m half afeerd to go up the stairs at night, for fear I would tumble over a stiff-un in a sack, as I did last Tuesday comm late from Con Halligin’s house-warmin’.” As she spoke, she applied the key, while the fosterer was lost between feelings of astonishment and disgust.
“Stop! What are you doing?” he exclaimed. But the deed was already done, and Mr. Spicer’s treasury feloniously opened to inspection. From this depositary, his faithless spouse produced a small box; and on lifting the lid, the fosterer perceived that it contained a number of bank notes, with money in every variety of coinage, being the produce of that worthy gentleman’s long and industrious life. The lady looked at her intended lover with a smile of triumph—
“You see, Mark dear, I won’t go to you empty-handed.”
“Whose property is that?” inquired the fosterer, suspiciously.
“Whose but the ould screw’s,” returned the lady. “Say but the word, and, Mark, every shilling shall be yours.”
“What! would you rob? and rob your husband too?” ^
“Ay, and not leave the ould rogue a mag to bless himself upon,” returned the unblushing offender.
“Let me out!” exclaimed the indignant fosterer. “By heaven! I should fear if I remained longer that the roof would fall!”
“Stay, Mark darline”—and Mrs. Spicer endeavoured to arrest the escape of her refractory admirer. “Where will you get one that loves you so tenderly, and that will bring you such a lump of money into the bargain as myself?”
“And how is that money to be gotten?” returned the fosterer, indignantly. “By the worst robbery of all—the plunder of a husband by the woman who should stick to him to the death!”
“Stay, just and hear me.”
“Not another minute!” exclaimed Mark Antony. “Every moment I remain here, I feel as if I were giving encouragement to a thief.”
It has been said, that “hell has no fury like a woman spurned; and Airs. Spicer proved that truth. Her colour fled the glow of passion with which she had vainly urged the honest Irishman to share her ill-acquired wealth, changed to the ashy hue of hatred and, springing suddenly forward, she placed her back against the door to bar the fosterer’s egress. He took her arm, and firmly but quieth, repeated his determination to leave the house.
“Never!” she exclaimed, “unless you take me with you.”
“Are you mad, woman?” returned the fosterer; “and would you keep me here until your husband returned, and discovered jour villanous intentions against himself?”
At the moment, a strong force from without dislodged the lady from the door, and the voice of the ratcatcher continued,—“And, upon my soul! that may be done without much loss of time, as the honest man and a couple of d——d ill-looking acquaintances, are coming round the corner.”
The announcement of Mr. Spicer’s advent produced an instant and awful effect on the feelings and countenance of his amiable consort.
“Holy Antony!” she exclaimed; “we’re all ruined and undone. Off with ye at once!” and she sprang forward to the window, and after a hurried glance down the street, added, in a voice of terror, “Lost! lost!—it’s too late—and there will be murder! Ha! I have it—quick, quick!” and after locking Mr. Spicer’s treasury, she rushed up stairs, followed by Mark Antony and his guardian genius, Shemus Rhua.
Mrs. Spicer stopped before a door on the first landing-place of the upper story, and unlocking it, introduced her visitors into a dark apartment, filled with lumber and old furniture; and having cautioned them to be silent, as every movement could be heard in the next room, she hastily retired, with an assurance that she would deliver them from captivity so soon as she “made the ould screw safe.”
“‘Pon my conscience,” whispered the ratcatcher, “we’re in a nate situation, Mark astore! What did I tell ye ye’r taa-drinkin’ would bring us to? Cromwell’s curse on the importer of the same herb, say I—for luck nor grace niver attended them that took to it! Here we are, as snug as if we were in Newgate, and that’s pleasant.”
“Hush, Shemus,” returned the captain’s companion; “they’re come!” as the steps and voices of several men were heard ascending the lower stairs.
During this brief colloquy, the ratcatcher and his élève had each applied an eye to a fissure in the wood-work; while, ensconced in darkness, they saw distinctly afterwards all that passed within. The room and its occupants are easily described.
The former was a comfortless attic, with a blinded window, a truckle bed, and a few mean articles of furniture. In one corner, there were mattocks and shovels, with other implements of unusual formation, used by gentlemen in the resurrection line; while in another, there appeared a choice collection of jemmies, skeleton keys, and every tool employed in burglary; all bespeaking that the tenant of the room was a person of general acquirements, and equally an adept, whether taken as a cracksman or a body-snatcher.
The appearance of the twain was most remarkable. The elder was, a stout, ill-visaged, swarthy Hebrew, with voluminous whiskers, and a most repulsive face; the other, that thing of legs and arms, whom we have already introduced as the confidant of Mr. Brown.
“How devilish dark!” remarked the hunchback.
“The better at times for business,” returned a second voice. “Stop—there’s a tinder-box on the table;” and the sparkle of flint on steel, was followed by the steadier glare proceeding from a lighted candle.
It was quite apparent that the caution to remain silent from Mrs. Spicer was necessary; for through the chinks in the crazy wood-work of a door which divided the apartments, the slightest sound was heard distinctly.
“We’re full late, and the sooner we are off the better,” returned the first speaker.
“We’ll be time enough for some people, for all that. A man can’t go without his tools, Master Frank; and just keep yourself quiet, and I’ll be with you in a shake.”
“Make haste, Josh. All’s ready; and fortune has done more for us than I could expect.”
“Well,” said the Jew to the hunchback, “and how is the trick to be done?”
“Safely,” replied the other. “Julia Travers has got him to meet her. Lord, what a girl it is!—There’s not a decoy in London to be compared to her. He believes her to be a soldier’s orphan—and she played her game so deep, and dressed so well too—I would have passed her myself in the street, and never suspected she was anything but a regular respectable. Well, Jim and the smasher are waiting at the dark turn of the alley—we follow—and while the chap’s attention is engaged in front, his back will be to you.”
“I understand ye; and this shall settle matters.”
The ruffian took from the implements of his villanous profession, a murderous weapon formed of whalebone and lead, and then producing a glass and bottle, the hunchback and he drank a glass to good-luck, extinguished the candle, and, locking the door of the apartment, descended the staircase, and closed the street door heavily.
Before the fosterer and his friend could express their mutual astonishment, the key was turned in the door of the closet where they had lain perdue, and Mrs. Spicer presented herself.
“Hush!” she said, “for the sake of Heaven!—My husband has gone for a minute to the Fox!—Hurry—or we’re ruined!”
She took Mark Antony’s hand—piloted him down stairs—the ratcatcher followed—and when both had gained the street, she shut the door suddenly, leaving her lover and his friend, as they say in Ireland, “on the right side to run away.”
The rapidity with which Mrs. Spicer had effected their deliverance, enabled Mark Antony and his companion to reach the street so close upon the heels of the ruffians, that they saw them turn the corner. By a sort of mutual consent, they too took the same direction; and, keeping the scoundrels in sight, regulated their movements as they proceeded. As the clock struck ten, St. Paul’s churchyard was at the same moment honoured with the presence of divers personages—to wit, myself and the incognita, the Jew and the hunchback—and, by a strange accident, the fosterer and Shemus Rhua. How singular—that my deliverance from certain death should have been effected through the agency of my foster brother!
While the parties paused for a few moments in the church-yard, the brief remarks that passed indicated the feelings and business of the triads.
“How imprudent this meeting must appear, sir! and how unguarded in a female to venture out at this unseasonable hour!” was whispered in the softest voice imaginable to some remark of mine, as I passed the arm of the incognita through mine.
“By Heaven, the thing is safe!” said the hunchbacked villain, in an under-tone, to his confederate. “See how blindly the poor flat runs into the snare, and follows the beck of the deepest dodger that ever betrayed a fool! Stick close; and mind your blow! Oh, that I had man’s strength!—there’s not in Britain one who loves a daring deed more dearly.—Would that the arm was equal to the heart!—How I shall delight to see that tall idiot, who would stare or smile at my deformity, grovelling on the earth, and wondering how he contrived to get his skull cracked, while he thought only of Julia’s charms, and fancied himself in full security.”
“Can ye see them, captain?” whispered the fosterer; “I can’t distinctly, the night’s so dark.”
“Many a darker one I have watched the soldiers pass me on the heather, after I was an outlaw,” replied the ratcatcher. “I see a man and woman. See, they turn to the right, under yonder drowsy-looking lamp; and there—those other two—one the dark scoundrel we overheard, and the cursed cripple he was talkin’ to. What are we to do, Mark?”
“Stick to the villains like a brace of blood-hounds,” replied the fosterer.
“I don’t half like it,” said the ratcatcher; “remember, Mark, how nearly I was being hanged about the tailor’s wife. There’s sure to be murder; and, holy Mary! all this comes out of taa-drinkin’!”
Through dark and intricate turnings, the soldier’s daughter conducted me. I found the arm that was locked in mine tremble, and yet the night was far from cold. As we advanced, the lanes became darker and less frequented, and I could not avoid remarking, how dreary and deserted the immediate neighbourhood of my young friend’s residence appeared to be. She replied—the tone of voice was agitated. Was she ill? I asked the question, and gently put my arm round her for support. Suddenly, some terrible emotion convulsed her.
“No—no—no!” she exclaimed: “not for thousands will I do it! There’s guilt enough upon my soul already!”
“Come, Julia,” I said, not clearly hearing what she said; “I must get you assistance. Come on.”
“Not another step,” she murmured. “Return—quick, quick—away, away!”
She caught my hand convulsively, turned her lips to my ear, whispered in a deep, low voice, “Ten paces further, and you are murdered!” and bounding from my side, vanished in the darkness, leaving me the most confounded gentleman that ever followed that will-o’-the-wisp—a woman.